


A Sentiment Resembling Ferocity

by RobinLorin



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Alternate Universe - Trans, Asexual Character, Everyone Is Trans and Gay, F/F, Gen, IN SPACE!, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 39,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinLorin/pseuds/RobinLorin
Summary: “Musketeer General Porthobi, my name is Constance Clerbeaux. You once served my mother in the Clone Wars. Now my planet needs you. Alderaan is under attack by the Empire. I have been taken captive by Darth Vader. I have placed information essential to the destruction of the Death Star in this droid. It is imperative that the plans get to the Rebellion. Please, Obi-Wan Porthobi, you’re our only hope.”





	1. Nineteen Year Later

**Author's Note:**

> "Ommer" is the non-gendered variant for aunt/uncle.

As the Republic burned, a Musketeer and a Queen lingered on a ship port. They both held a bundle of cloth in their arms. They were both trying not to say goodbye.

“You know I’ve always wanted to be a mother.”

“Yes. And I never meant to be a parent.”

“The Force has its own plans for us.”

“I never thought this…”

“…Porthos?”

“How can I believe that this is a plan? It’s a horrible mistake. All my life I’ve trusted in the Force, and now…”

“Faith is always most needed in times of struggle.”

“How will I hold onto that without you, Alice?”

A pale hand squeezed a dark one. Both scarred by battle and worn by time.

“I will always be with you. As your strength and kindness will always be with me. I’ll teach my child what it is to be a defender of the Republic.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t teach my child what it means to be good? What it means to be a Mu—“

“The Musketeers don’t exist anymore.”

“Danger lies in these children’s future, no matter what. They should not rush into that danger without first knowing the bravery and honor of their mothers. Don’t cry, Porthos. Go now. May the Force be with you, my friend.”

  


The entire planet of Naboo halted for a planetary hour to witness the passing of Senator d’Autriche.

The bier holding the late senator and ex-queen’s remains was paraded through a crowd of onlookers at the capitol palace. The only thing missing from the still form was a necklace which she wore every day. But the only one who would notice its absence was the one who made it, and she was far away. In the crowd were humans and Gungan alike. The Gungan raised their arms in a gesture of well-wishing as the woman passed. She who had united their people would be remembered.

The bier reached the palace steps, and halted. The bed rose until her shape was lost to view, and only a smooth coffin rested before the grand palace that once was her home and domain.

Once. Before she left Naboo; before everything collapsed.

The Red Guards were in force today, standing in rigid lines at the crowd’s edges. The humans eyed them warily, but they did not fear them. Not yet.

Pallbearers lifted the coffin and carry it up the steps of the palace, where another ceremony would see the senator laid to rest in the palace catacombs.

The crowd slowly dispersed. Soon the Empire would rule their world as well as their thoughts; soon they would have no more days of fine and ostentatious funerals; soon there would be no time to honor the old republic’s honor guard.

And so the memory of Anne d’Autriche began to slip away from the galaxy.

  


A small child in a peculiar brown tunic and breeches rubbed their eyes and sat up. A red-tinged jungle surrounded them: trees growing to immense proportions, leaves the size of an adult bantha; strange and vibrant animals peering every which way with their many pairs of false eye markings.

The child looked around at the remains of a space capsule. Only half the capsule was intact. The rest was in pieces scattered in a wide radius.

They looked up. The sky was very purple and very far away. There were no stars.

A noise made the child start to their feet.

Another small creature emerged from the underbrush. It caught sight of the human, opened its mouth wider than it seemed it should go, and shrieked.

Its mother was at its side in seconds. Like her child, she was covered in feathers, but hers were brilliantly blue and purple. She gathered up her child and looked around for the danger. The child in her arms received a scolding at the sight of the harmless, confused alien.

<Who are you, little one?> she asked the human child.

They stared at her with wide eyes.

<Where did you come from?>

No answer.

The woman inspected the rescue capsule. <A survivor,> she said. She held out a webbed hand. <Come. You will be one of our foundlings. Mari’i will take care of you.>

  


People on Tatooine don't need more than one name. What's the point of a family name, when families are broken up and sold, or killed by sandstorms, at any moment? Family was who you survived storms with; it was who you snuck water to; it was who came to look for you after a storm.

When a dark-skinned stranger arrived on Tatooine with a baby tucked into their cloak, they were just another stranger with just another story behind them. There was plenty of desert for folks to hide in, no matter what they were running from or trying to forget.

It wasn’t even a passing interest that the stranger didn’t share their name with the child they brought with them. There were all types of family on Tatooine.

  


A brilliantly glowing blade swept out of the darkness, severing a Red Guard’s head before vanishing again into nothing.

The other guards stared, startled, as their comrade’s body toppled over.

Before they could yell, the sabre swept into another’s neck, and she was gone as well.

The three remaining guards attempted to form a defensive shield, but the wielder of the sabre was faster than their programming had trained them for.

One.

Two.

Three.

And then nothing was left in the hallway but death and silence.

Céline stepped out of the shadows and surveyed her work. Years of war had honed her ability to take action as needed, but nothing yet could stop the tear of guilt and sorrow in her heart whenever she saw fallen Red Guards.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” she whispered to the faces still hidden behind their helmets.

Something leapt in the stillness.

Céline glanced up sharply. There was no physical presence, but a sharpness reached her through the Force.

Céline’s eyes widened.

_She knew that presence…_

Céline ran.

There was no time to go back for the artifact she had infiltrated the base for. There was no time to contact her team who waited outside. There was no time for anything but the desperate push of her boots against the dusty floor, and the frail frantic hope that one more step might save her. Just one. If she could just outrun her ghosts, if she could just make it out…

The flat, rhythmic stomp of Vader’s boots echoed down the tunnel to Céline. She could hear it over even her own heavy breath in her chest.

She came to a dead end. She had cornered herself. She had run as far and as fast as she could, and in the end —

Well.

Hadn’t she always known that she would have to face her former Master at some point?

She turned to the door, and readied her sabres. She was older now. She had fought her own war. She had learned more than her Master had ever taught her, before her Master had left her.

Vader’s black-hole suit blocked all light from the doorway.

“You are foolish to come here,” said the mechanical voice of the suit. “And now you will die here.”

  


The Bonnaire hustler looked Ommer Porthos up and down.

“You this brat’s uncle?”

D’Artagnan winced as the man tugged sharply on his ear.

“I’m his guardian,” said Porthos. Even the amiable agreement held a growl of warning in it.

The mob man gave d’Artagnan’s ear another twist. “Found him on my land, trying to mess with my vaporators.”

“I wasn’t,” d’Artagnan began to protest. “Ow!”

“Better keep a better eye on yours,” the man told Porthos warningly. “Others around here might not be as nice as me. Who knows what the Bonnaires might do if they found out a suspiciously loner space ‘plant’s brat has been poking around…?”

Porthos shifted their weight.

“I could keep it on the quiet, if someone could find it in his loner heart to share some of his recent prosperity with his neighbors.” The hustler raised an eyebrow above his dust mask.

Porthos was silent a minute, eyeing the man up and down. The growl erupted from low in their chest. “‘Their’.”

“Who?”

“Not ‘he’. ‘They’.”

The hustler’s eyes flicked to the doorway behind Porthos. “You hiding somebody else in that hut?”

“The proper way to address me,” said Porthos, “is with ‘they’ and ‘their’. As in, ‘someone could find it in _their_ loner heart to refrain from pummeling _their_ neighbor into the sand, because _they_ know the Bonnaires only hire the smallest womprats and nobody’d miss him’.”

As they spoke, Porthos emerged fully from the small house, unbending their back and rolling their shoulders. Their neck cracked ominously.

“D’Artagnan,” said Ommer Porthos. “Go inside now.”

  


The people of Serenno knew what their governor was. It was foolish to think they didn’t. But no one was willing to speak against him; not even quietly, at the back of a busy restaurant.

The people of Serenno who outlived the governor’s amusement lived well.

Those who didn’t outlive the governor didn’t have a chance to speak out.

After sie had exhausted hir resources, sie went to the source. The governor’s mansion was only half-lit, the few windows that glowed blue with lamplight spilling the bright color onto the trimmed lawn. He wasn’t one for public soirées or meetings, and his house was lit brightly only once in a full moon. He liked his prison-palace dark; and he liked to stay there, in the dark.

Sie opened the door of the mansion easily. Sie listened for screams or whimpers. There was nothing. The house had died long ago, and no sound carried within its walls.

Sie would find the dungeons, later, when sie was done. Sie would kill the house for once and for all.

Fire, perhaps, was the best way.

(Sie brushed calloused fingertips over hir scarred cheek. Yes, fire was cleansing.)

He was sitting in his study when sie found him. The fire was roaring. The holo-cast was on, but muted. Holograms of spirited sitcom characters overacted on the rich pelt rug.

He looked up.

“Ah,” he said. “Either I have finally gone mad, or I have discovered the truth of our life after death.”

Sie stepped fully into the room. “You went mad a long time ago,” sie said.

“I’m eccentric. It’s because I’m rich, you see. And because I’m rich, I can…” He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

“They won’t come,” sie said. “Your guards are gone.”

He frowned. “Inconvenient.”

“You’ve been dealing with the Empire.”

He sat back and crossed his legs. “It’s all the rage these days.” He kept his eyes trained on hir, and the blaster sie produced.

“Don’t be flippant with me.”

“You can hardly blame a poor merchant whose only outlets have all been consolidated by the Empire, can you?”

“You’ve been trading young girls,” sie said.

“I’m sure they—“

He made an awful noise as sie shot him through the chest. An indignant hiccup, almost.

Just that. No excuses, no biding for time until reinforcements arrived. Just a shot, and a gasp.

Sie crouched over him and watched to make sure he died. Sie took no more chances with supposed deaths.

When his body began to cool, sie stood and addressed the body. “That was for an old friend, and their mother.”

  


Over the dunes, somewhere under the westerly sun, the Bonnaires did their dirty work in the cold ruckus of their underground city. D’Artagnan, too, slept beneath the sand. When he was younger he’d laid in bed, trembling, imagining he could hear their jeers through the packed earth. It was only the noise of the hydrators clanking away, but he’d crawl into Ommer Porthos’ futon and cuddle close. Porthos’ arm would wrap around him and he’d be safe.

D’Artagnan knew about the Bonnaires. He wasn’t a dummy. He knew that the alien over on the southwest slope was with the Bonnaires, and if you trespassed on his soil he’d send you to the Bonnaires so they could cut you up.

Ommer Porthos sometimes talked about them, when they overcharged for parts: that someone should put a cog in the rigged system.

“Why not you, Ommer Porthos?” d’Artagnan asked. “You’re big and strong! I bet you could knock ‘em over.”

Then Porthos went quiet and looked over at d’Artagnan. They’d go quiet, and then they were back to normal, not angry anymore. Just tired and kind of sad.

“Violence only draws attention,” said Porthos. “Unless you intend to replace the entire system, the next wave of Bonnaires — whatever they call themselves — will come after you then.”

D’Artagnan knew that Ommer Porthos wanted to to leave Tatooine just as much as d’Artagnan did. They’d stare at the desert some nights — no, not _at_ , but _beyond_. D’Artagnan did the same; sometimes, in the middle of chores, he’d straighten up and look to the sky, as if some silent voice was calling for him.

He daydreamed about exploring; about getting off the sand-sea of Tatooine; a dozen shifting fantasies of excitement and renown and… and something different than the relentless suns of his home.

He’d never felt at home here. He wondered where Ommer Porthos had come from; if they were missing home as well. His most secret fantasy was of Porthos taking him home. A real home. Someone would recognize him and tell him about his and Porthos’ family.

Somewhere beyond this planet that was controlled by secret forces everyone tiptoed around. Somewhere forty percent of their earnings didn’t have to go to either the mobsters or the neighborhood militia who tried to patrol for protection.

(Somewhere that someone would look at him, and say, _oh, I’ve been waiting for you_.)

Somewhere that someone knew him.

  


Constance grew up in a spotlight of her own choosing.

Some looked at her condescendingly, for her age or for her complicated gender status. Some took offense to the ill-kept secret that she was an adopted alien, whether because they objected to an adopted child ruling a kingdom or because of cultural xenophobia. Others objected to what they called her "gall" in naming herself a woman instead of the third gender that existed in the common tongue of her planet.

She had never thought of herself as the "not right" gender type that had been given to her at birth. It was meant for those who didn’t fit on one side or the other -- woman or man -- because of unusual genitals, because of self-expression, or because of a rejection of the limited choice of genders.

And what could an adopted alien be but “other”?

At eight years old Constance made the first move in a long list of them which would prove that only Constance decided what she was to be.

She declared her girlhood in an official decree, with her parent looking on as Constance had stamped the symbols into slate. She felt the welcome weight of her aunt’s warm hand on her shoulder, and the soft brush of her mother’s robes as she led Constance to her dressing room to help her try on dresses.

“Can I show my other mommy?” she asked her mother.

The Queen stroked Constance’s hair. “Shh, love. We’ll talk about that later. Here, what about this blue one?”

  


Most of d’Artagnan’s friends had gone away. Some had won scholarships to schools on the other side of the planet, or even off-planet. Others had whispered to d’Artagnan that they would be joining the Rebellion. D’Artagnan had fought bitterly with his ommer over d’Artagnan’s want -- his need -- to fight as well.

D’Artagnan always stomped away from those arguments as the loser, knowing that he was needed on the farm for another season…

and another…

and just one more.

True, d’Artagnan chafed at being left behind. But with his friends’ absence came a new opportunity. He could sneak into the clubs and bars as a boy without the worry of anyone recognizing him.

_(d’Artagnan_

instead of

_Leia.)_

His friends hadn’t commented on d’Artagnan wearing looser clothes as they grew up. Farmers didn’t have the choice of fine dresses, after all, and most poor girls wore unisex work clothes all the time. But even on the nights when d’Artagnan’s group of friends went out for something special -- like Espoir leaving for the resistance or Planchet leaving the planet for an apprenticeship

(all of them leaving while d’Artagnan stayed behind)

\-- he wore men’s outfits, and kept his hair short as the other boys did.

Some girls in the clubs they went to wore boys’ clothes, and some girls liked their hair short. But d’Artagnan didn’t think those girls secretly wanted to be boys, not the way d’Artagnan did. Those girls wore lipstick and flirted with boys and other girls. D’Artagnan had always hated makeup.

(And he had never wanted to flirt with women. Or men.)

(People on Tatooine just weren’t interesting. That was probably it.)

But now Espoir was gone, and Planchet and Grimaud and the others, and no one was around to see d’Artagnan muss his hair in the latest cool-guy fashion of the city and slip on a too-tight shirt that flattened his chest before donning his overclothes. The folded top and leggings marked him as a farmer, but at least a male one.

Maybe this was why Porthos didn’t like d’Artagnan to go into town. Or maybe, as d’Artagnan had thought to himself for so long, it was because Porthos was ashamed of d’Artagnan.

Porthos didn’t like d’Artagnan talking to anyone. He didn’t even have anyone but droids on the farm. And when they did run into people out here, Porthos never introduced d’Artagnan as his nephew.

“This is my ward, d’Artagnan.”

Ward, not nephew. But not “niece,” either.

It was like his ommer didn’t want anyone to know about d’Artagnan.

And d’Artagnan, he wanted to be known all over.

A star in the sky.

An explosion on the horizon.

A whisper that shook the slimiest Bonnaire to their rotten core.

  


Constance wrapped her hands around her warm mug of local spice-sap. Around her the low clatter and murmur of a spice shop disguised her companion's debate.

"But why shouldn't we support the disenfranchised planets?" said Helene, a tall Bimm in a modest head covering. "Why shouldn't we work toward helping other life systems receive the benefits from the Empire that others do already?"

Sofia scoffed. "You talk as if it's an arbitrary act for the Empire to withhold services. It isn't all straightforward; most of the planets are culpable of crimes against the Empire. Why should we share our resources with war criminals?"

Constance slapped her palm on the tabletop. "And what makes the Empire the rightful judge of penalty for those so-called crimes? A just governing body would grant the same rights to all of its denizens."

Helene nodded. "What's the point of punishing dissenters with less food and a suffering economy? It will only convince them that any other way is best for them."

Constance frowned. That was true, but it wasn't what she had meant. The thought, lurking under her peers' well-worn criticism of the Empire, was infuriatingly hard to verbalize.

She stared into her mug of sap, trying to coax the thought from its hiding place. The Empire's treatment of rebels was bad enough, but the practices that went on behind closed doors... Constance hadn't realized until her mother had begun bringing her to senate meetings that most of the empire's trade operated on slave labor. Or that the Empire was responsible for relocating populations of entire planets in order to create its own vision of power.

When the thought finally coalesced, it nearly flew away again as Constance nearly knocked over her mug. She focused on the rippling surface of the spice until she could see the reflection of her wide eyes.

It wasn't the Empire's governing that was the issue. It was the Empire itself.

  


In the nineteenth year of her life Constance was having theoretical debates about things that could be changed in years, if legislation was carried through.

She sat in coffee shops and argued about the best way to respect cultures and return autonomy to planets under the Empire’s thumb. She had words for those concepts. She argued and reasoned her way into the Rebellion.

D’Artagnan grew up knowing the frustration of being a single replaceable grain of sand before the immediate power of an absolute, unlawful, and untouchable ruler. He didn’t have words for agency or independence, but he knew the ache in his heart that meant the same thing.

The Empire liked to think that it owned all the planets in the system, but those in the right circles knew that Tatooine was one of the best places to dock if you didn’t want a fleet of Red Guards breathing down your neck. The local soldiers stationed there were so bored and tired of sand that they’d look the other way if it meant a few extra bottles of your best off-world grog.

The bars of Tatooine were lively, the slave trade was running at full speed, and the underground life of the few cities was mean-spirited and busy.

No one on Tatooine would be looking away from the cities, into the desert where the poorest locals lived. But if they had, they might have seen a figure standing atop a dune, looking back at them.

 

“Mistress Constance!”

The droid scurried down the blindingly white halls of the spaceship. Her nervous voice pitched above the sound of blasters firing.

The ship lurched and the droid, styled as a young Sorrusian female with golden skin and hair, steadied herself against a wall. Despite her mechanical makeup, the droid’s face somehow conveyed a worried, anxious look.

“Mistress Constance!” The droid caught sight of her charge and scurried over. “The ship is under attack! We must get you out—“

“The plans are more important than I am, Fleur,” interrupted her mistress.

“Princess!”

“No arguing. I’m charging you with taking these plans to a trusted ally.”

“Me? But, princess, I’m only a translation droid!” Fleur fretted.

“Here.” Princess Constance beckoned over a second droid, stout and non-humanoid. “I’m giving you both the documents with coordinates. Now go!”

  


“D’Artagnan!”

The sharp call came from the house. D’Artagnan sighed and turned away from his dune. The return to endless sand and the small home he shared with his only parent was just another reminder that his life was probably the worst a teenager could ever have.

He scuffed his shoes through the sand as he returned to the house. “What?” he called down into the opening of their house.

“The droid just beeped its last,” his ommer called, voice nearing until d’Artagnan could see his Ommer Porthos’ wiry curls, shot through with gray.

Porthos tilted their face up to squint at d’Artagnan. “There’s a trader’s vehicle over two klicks southeast. Will you go get us a new droid?”

“I--” D’Artagnan was about to protest, to ask Porthos how they knew there was a trader’s caravan at all, to tell them that d’Artagnan was working on his other chores. He sighed and accepted Porthos’ chips.

  


Constance heard the heavy steps coming down the hallway outside her door. She arranged herself in a perfectly casual pose despite the panic thrumming through her veins, and waited.

The door slid open, and Vader’s tall black frame filled the doorway.

Constance scanned Vader’s infamous suit, automatically looking for any signs of weakness. The heavy breaths indicated that the suit was not a fashion accessory, as some claimed, but a form of a life support. If Constance could find a weakness, find somewhere to dig her fingers in or flip some panel…

This close, Constance could see tiny alterations in the suit: different alloys snugged together at the seams, different brands of buttons along panel edges. She caught a glimpse of a dark curl over the glossy shoulder plate. Vader had modified the helmet to allow her hair loose. It was a strange indulgence, but somehow it resonated with Constance.

Vader spoke, in a higher voice than Constance had expected. Constance wondered if Vader had specifically adjusted the voice modulator to imitate a woman’s fluttering pitch.

Still, the words were robotic and cold.

“Princess Constance,” Vader said.

“Lady Vader,” Constance said in disgust. She didn’t acknowledge Vader with a nod, as she would to a real lady. “I should have known it was you. Who else would be so bold as to attack a diplomatic ship?”

“You are not on a diplomatic mission,” Vader said. “Do not play games with me. You are a rebel, and a traitor to the Empire.”

Constance kept her breathing even and her heartbeat slow. It always helped to remember her mother’s lessons and let her fear sink right through her, through her toes, through the metal floor, through the ship and out into space.

When she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she almost believed it herself.

 

D’Artagnan made good time across the sands. He could see the caravan ahead, and the city of Gascony to his left.

A beep interrupted his trek. He looked around and saw a squat blue droid nearing him. From the tracks, it seemed the droid had come straight from the caravan.

“Hey, hey,” he said soothingly. “Where are you going, little one?” D’Artagnan brushed grime off the droid’s surface and read the type aloud: “Bon-ACU, huh? What are you doing out here?”

The droid beeped. A light in its interface blinked, flickered, and suddenly emitted a bright blue beam.

D’Artagnan jumped back and saw the mirage of a young woman, about his age.

“General Porthobi,” she said into thin air. Her image flickered and static interrupted her words. “You once served -- mother -- under attack. I have placed information -- Vader -- looking for — Please -- only hope.”

The message died, the woman vanishing, just as a group of traders swarmed over the nearest dune and descended on d’Artagnan and the droid. They squawked at the droid angrily. One poked d’Artagnan, who jumped back.

“Hey!” he said. They ignored him. “Hey -- wait! I want to buy that droid!”

They paused and eyed him. “Bad droid,” one said in the thick accent of the people who lived in the quarries. “It will run away.”

“He is not!” A high-pitched warble announced the arrival of another droid, golden and girl-like. “I have worked with Bon-ACU before, and I can attest to his trustworthiness.”

The traders began to protest again, but d’Artagnan interrupted. “It’s fine. He’s just the kind I’m looking for. Look,” d’Artagnan pulled out his credit chips. “How much d’you want for them both?”

 

The Death Star laser took long, dragging minutes to power up. Nothing of such destructive power could be ready in a flash, after all. The power of the mechanism shook the floor ever so slightly; Constance thought she was imagining the vibration in her feet until one of the soldiers by the controls shifted uncomfortably.

Constance felt the heavy expectant weight of the stares as the whine of laser grows louder and louder. She couldn’t tear her eyes from her planet.

The words were on the tip of her tongue.

She remembered her mama’s warm hand on her shoulder, and her soft robes as she had led Constance to her dressing room to help her try on dresses.

Her mother’s closets, made of petrified wood and carved in the traditional designs of royalty. Her dresses and skirts. Her rough trousers for when she wanted to garden. Constance used to sit next to her and half-heartedly poke a few weeds.

Would her mother be in the garden when the beam struck? Would she see the plants begin to wither and stare in a single moment of confusion before she knew nothing else?

Or would she feel nothing at all -- talking to Constance’s father about his birthday celebration in two days, and then -- poof?

Constance searched among the greenish clouds of Alderaan's atmosphere for her country. She couldn’t make it out.

The pitch of the lasers grew and grew until Constance's teeth were hurting from it.

The whine grew higher and higher, so high Constance thought it can't go anymore, and then it still climbed.

A robotic hand gripped Constance’s shoulder. Vader’s voice was low in her ear.

“Give me information and I’ll stop it.”

Constance’s lip trembled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Anne Naberrie.”

Constance couldn’t help the fear that struck her. She covered the flinch by looking down. “I don’t know her.”

The hand squeezed. Constance’s clavicle protested. “Do not lie to me.”

Constance raised her head, once again fully in charge of herself, and looked straight at her planet. “I’ve never heard of her before in my life.”

“I will find her,” Vader promised. “It would be better for you to surrender now.”

  


D’Artagnan gave the Bon-ACU unit’s message board another twist and sat back. “Try it now.”

The message flared to life again. This time it played for longer, the flickering gone. D’Artagnan could see tiny dots in the girl’s hair -- flowers? An unexpected prickle of affection ran through him.

“Musketeer General Porthobi,” said the girl. She stared straight at the camera and her eyes were hard and desperate. D’Artagnan recognized barely concealed panic in the twist of her mouth. “My name is Constance Clerbeaux. You once served my mother in the Clone Wars. Now my planet needs you. Alderaan is under attack by the Empire. I have been taken captive by Darth Vader. I have placed information essential to the destruction of the Death Star in this droid. It is imperative that the plans get to the Rebellion. Please, Obi-Wan Porthobi, you’re our only hope.”

The message ended. The girl was gone.

D’Artagnan looked at his ommer eagerly. “Have you ever heard of this Musketeer?”

Porthos was staring at the place where the girl had been standing. “Constance,” they murmured.

“Ommer? Do you know this Musketeer? Obi-Wan Porthobi?”

“I haven’t gone by that name in many years,” Porthos said slowly.

D’Artagnan stared blankly at Porthos until the words registered. “You’re the Musketeer?” He gaped. “But you’re -- you’re not a soldier! You’re a farmer. You’re my ommer.”

Porthos looked up and met d’Artagnan’s eyes, their deep eyes tired. “I’m not a Musketeer now,” they said. “But I was once. As was your mother.”

  


A flurry of sparks erupted from the control panel, so suddenly that Constance jumped. The whine cut off abruptly.

The soldier at the control panel frantically flipped switches and pressed buttons. He looked at Vader. "The laser malfunctioned, ma'am."

Vader’s computerized voice spoke, echoing weirdly in the sterile room. "There is no need for the laser to work."

The soldier gaped. "Ma'am? I thought this--"

"You were mistaken," said the cold, high voice. "The princess did not give us a second location. Her information is secure."

The soldier’s face darkened with disbelief. "Lord Vader, this order came from the emp--"

His words were cut off with a guttural choke. His hands flew to his throat. Something moved in Constance's peripheral vision and she realized that Vader was holding out a hand, fingers curved as if physically throttling the soldier.

He slid to the floor.

"You were mistaken," Vader said again. "It is 'my lady,’ not ‘Lord.’"

In the silence that followed, General Gallagher’s footsteps clicked loudly on the floor. He stepped over the prone form of the nameless soldier and put his hand to the control panel.

“You dare,” Vader said, raising her hand again. Gallagher met Vader’s gaze and smiled mockingly.

“I take orders from the Emperor, not you,” he said, and flipped a switch. With that casual motion, Constance’s home was destroyed. Even as Gallagher’s body joined the soldier’s on the floor, bits of molten rock flew past the viewing window.

  


“D’Artagnan?” Porthos stopped and looked around for their neph… their charge.

The golden droid was hovering around d’Artagnan. The boy was staring at nothing, one hand balancing him on the hull of their speeder. As Porthos crossed to him, tears began to roll down d’Artagnan’s face.

Porthos cupped d’Artagnan’s face in his hands. “Child.”

D’Artagnan’s eyes refocused. “Ommer?”

“Where are you?” Porthos asked.

“I’m cold,” d’Artagnan said.

“You’re in the desert. You’re on Tatooine. This is the only place you’ve ever been. How can you be cold?”

D’Artagnan’s eyes refocused. He looked around. “I don’t… I guess I got distracted. Sorry.” He bent his head and wiped at his nose, then touched the wetness on his cheeks in surprise.

Porthos had long ago learned to trust in the Force. The Force had a plan and it moved within every living creature, shaping their lives and their destinies.

For the first time since they were a child, Porthos wished that they could change destiny.

“Come,” they said. “We need a ship. We need to find the girl who made that transmission.”

  


Porthos made their way to a dark tavern nestled in the hollows of the Gascony cliffs. D’Artagnan had already palmed a few coins to slip to the soldiers when Porthos waved their hand and the Red Guards backed away.

D’Artagnan gaped at Porthos. His ommer was barely hiding a smile.

“All this time!” d’Artagnan said indignantly. “And now you’re just showing off!”

Ommer Porthos had to laugh then, bringing wrinkles to the corners of their eyes.

It was darker inside than any other bar d’Artagnan knew, and there were more aliens than he’d ever seen at once.

Porthos motioned d’Artagnan over to a table, where a woman sat with her feet up on the table. A larger figure sat next to her in the shadows of the corner.

D’Artagnan sat down and the woman said, “Who’s this?”

“My traveling partner,” said Porthos. D’Artagnan tried not to visibly wilt at the missing “my nephew.”

“Flea,” said the woman to d’Artagnan, not bothering to shake his hand. She jerked her thumb at the heavily bearded figure sitting next to her. “This here’s my co-pilot, Athos. Don’t ask him questions, cuz he won’t talk to you.”

“Jeez,” said d’Artagnan, staring at the enormous hairy growth that slightly resembled a beard on most of Athos’ face. “What planet did you come from?”

True to Flea’s word, Athos only glowered at d’Artagnan.

“He’s half Wookie,” said Flea dryly. “Can’t you tell by the hair?”

Porthos lay a restraining hand on d’Artagnan’s shoulder. “Be nice,” they admonished. “Flea and her co--”

“Xe,” Flea interrupted.

Porthos held her gaze and nodded. “Apologies. Is that a Preuitian word?”

Flea shrugged. “Nah. Made it up myself.”

D’Artagnan looked back and forth between them, wondering what they were talking about.

Porthos saw d’Artagnan’s confusion. They leaned over and said in a low voice, “Flea is neither a woman or a man. Like me, but in a different way, understand? Xe uses different pronouns. Xe and xir instead of she or him.”

D’Artagnan’s mouth opened in an “o” of understanding. He looked at Flea with fresh eyes.

She -- no, xe -- was quiet and soft-spoken in a way that somehow reminded d’Artagnan of the desert. Xe was still, like the never-ending dunes; but something in xir stance suggested the shifting sands that could bury a person alive in a few minutes. Long, yellow hair hung loose down xir back.

Was this where the people like d’Artagnan and Porthos had been hiding the whole time? D’Artagnan looked around the room again. He could hear a dozen different languages spoken and squeaked and roared. Did they all have their own pronouns too? Did they all casually throw off the mantle of “man” or “woman”?

Flea barely flicked xir eyes up when a pair of Stormtroopers made their way over to the table. Xe handled them as well as a hand-wave from Porthos would have done, and without any fuss the Guard left.

“So,” xe said, staring at them both. “What brings you in need of the _Millennium Wren_?”

Porthos leaned forward. “I imagine the same kind of business that brings a pirate to Tatooine.”

Flea raised a warning finger. “Careful. I’m an entrepreneur. And you need me, seems like.”

“Then we understand each other,” Porthos said.

Flea looked at the both of them a minute longer, and then grinned. It had a glint of recklessness in it. “Hell, why not?”

  


Porthos produced two things from the bag they had grabbed before leaving their home on Tatooine: one was a small ball that floated in midair and shot sparks. The other was a lightsabre.

D’Artagnan turned it over in his hands. “This was my mother’s,” he said. He raised his head to see Porthos staring at him thoughtfully.

“Yes,” said Porthos. “How’d you know?”

D’Artagnan shrugged. “I just felt it.”

“Good. That same feeling will help you defend yourself from this training orb.” Porthos waved a hand at the floating ball. It send a ray of light at Porthos, which they batted aside with a bare hand. “You do the same, but with that sabre,” they said.

D’Artagnan tried and got zapped. He shook his hand out.

“You’re forgetting our lessons,” Porthos chided. “Remember how I taught you to use a knife? Keep your body low.”

D’Artagnan obeyed, but the next zap caught him on the back of the hand. Porthos could feel the uncertainty eating away at him. They tsked to keep him focused.

Porthos didn’t have the tools to teach d’Artagnan the way they had been taught; the way Jedi had been taught for generations before. There were no handy tool belts; there was no time for careful, individualized tutoring. D'Artagnan had barely a conception of the Force at the same age that Porthos had been confident of the Force flowing around them, guiding them.

Their faith had been rock-solid at this age. D'Artagnan's belief in the Force, never mind his ability to manipulate it, was still new and wavering.

  


D’Artagnan loved space travel.

He liked it best when Flea used xir extensive vocabulary of curses. Ommer Porthos made stern looks when they saw d’Artagnan listening, but d’Artagnan would grin and Porthos would stroke their beard to cover their smile.

D’Artagnan loved the jolts of weightlessness when the _Wren’s_ gravity capacitor choked, until Athos slapped the bulkhead and the ship righted itself.

He loved the glimpse, this very first taste he’d even had, of other planets. Space stations that Flea referred to casually like they were towns d’Artagnan might visit for spare parts.

Flea had said that xe had made up xir pronouns. Could anyone make up a pronoun? Or a gender? Could d’Artagnan be half-boy and half-girl?

He pestered Ommer Porthos with these questions. At the last, Porthos put a hand on d’Artagnan’s shoulder. “Do you feel this way?”

“No,” said d’Artagnan. “You know I’m a boy. We went through the whole thing when I was eight. I’m just curious. Are there really so many different genders and things that people can be?”

It was due in part to parallel evolution, ommer Porthos explained when they were through laughing at d’Artagnan's expense. “Humanoids from different planets evolve in a direct response to the adaptation protocols of their environment.”

D’Artagnan sighed and sat himself on the floor cross-legged. “You mean they change because of their surroundings.” He'd been trying to get Porthos to stop talking such fancy talk for years to no avail. Ommer Porthos was the most educated person d’Artagnan had ever met on Tatooine. Not that he’d met a lot of people.

Porthos sat back and nodded. “Imagine that a hundred thousand years ago, two planets were settled by the same species. What makes them survive on each planet? Adaptation, my lad. And when things change, humans like to come up with names for the changes.”

“New pronouns for new kinds of human,” said d’Artagnan. He fiddled with his mother’s lightsabre. He thought of the strange things he’d noticed about the shape of Flea’s body under xir clothes, things he’d attributed to a disability: the sharp bones protruding from Flea's back like large curved shoulder blades from xir waist to xir neck; the concave flex of xir chest bone.

Ommer Porthos' voice reverberated in his rib cage, around his thumping heart: _"My lad."_

  


Constance huddled in her bare metal cell.

Alderaan was gone.

Mother was gone.

There were no graves. There was no resting place for her planet. There was no place that could hold the weight of Alderaan.

She slowly unwound the heavy knots of coiled hair that sat above her ears. The buns signified her political position as princess, a placement which no longer existed.

She was 

(had been?; was?)

a princess of Alderaan, but not the only one. Her first diplomatic missions had been to other countries of her own world, pleading with other princesses and diplomats and presidents and tribal leaders, asking them to join her in the rebellion.

What of Einkt, the middling country that would always hold a special place in her heart? Neighbor to Constance’s own, it was

(had been? will always be, in perpetuity?)

ruled by a third-gender person. Ei had taught Constance not to hate the Alderaanian gender that she had always thought of as cruel and divisive: the gender that said "not man, not woman, something strange and wrong."

(Well, and what else would an alien be but “other”? She wasn’t the Alderaan man or an Alderaan woman. So Constance was named ea, instead of she. So she had weathered the stares and the whispers until in a fit of rage, at age eight, she had decided that she would choose what would be whispered about her.

She had declared her girlhood in an official decree, with her parents looking on as Constance had stamped the symbols into slate.)

Ei had invented a new sub-gender for eirself, proclaiming what ei was specifically -- "not man, not woman, something new and wonderful, with a man's body and a woman's heart.”

That country and its ruler would be gone. Eir teachings and inspiration for others like Constance would never exist again but in Constance’s memories.

Who else would carry those lessons?

(Must Constance speak for all of Alderaan now? For those who had bolstered her, and for those who had despised her? What would Constance do to keep those lessons alive in the void of the galaxy?

Who was she to preach when she couldn’t even open her lips to save her planet?)

  


The _Millennium Wren_ came out of light speed into an asteroid belt.

“This wasn’t on the map,” Flea growling, jerking at the controls. “Athos, give me a hand here!”

Porthos leaned over d’Artagnan’s shoulder to survey the asteroids ahead. “Alderaan,” they said. “It’s missing.”

“What?” snapped Flea. “A planet can’t go missing. The system would go out of whack; the planets surrounding it could spin off-kilter and die.”

“Exactly,” said Porthos. “I can sense that the planetary system is in extreme chaos.”

“No, there’s the planet,” d’Artagnan said eagerly, pointing ahead.

“That’s just some moon,” said Flea dismissively. D’Artagnan scowled at xir.

“That’s no moon,” said Porthos slowly. “That’s a space station.”

They all stared in dumbstruck horror at the monstrous machine that seemed to have replaced Alderaan’s spot in the sky.

“That thing blew up Alderaan?” d’Artagnan whispered. He looked at his ommer. “What about all the people?”

“Gone. I felt a great distress in the Force, but I didn’t imagine…” Porthos stared at the strange moon, hand going unconsciously to their chin in deep thought. “There’s a presence…” They sucked in a sharp breath, and they sounded unnervingly vulnerable. “Vader did this.”

D’Artagnan stared at the space station, his blood pumping in his ears. The most infamous and dangerous weapon of the Empire was within spitting distance.

“Let’s avoid that,” Flea told xir co-pilot. Athos nodded and growled.

“Shit. We’re being hailed by the station.” Flea jumped at the controls. “I’m sending ‘em a pass-by code, hope to hell it works.”

“It won’t,” Porthos said quietly.

Flea cursed and thumped at the console. “They’re bringing us in. If we go quietly they might just let us go with a quick search. Let’s not make a fuss, okay?”

Athos growled, deep in his throat, and turned to stare expressively at Flea. Xe must have understood him, because xe slumped and let go of the controls.

“There’s nothing we can do,” xe said bitterly. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  


Porthos laid a hand on d’Artagnan’s shoulder. “Listen,” they said. “Close your eyes.”

D’Artagnan obeyed. “What’m I listening for?”

“Where does the ship’s sound go quiet? What noises does a fugitive make? Stretch your senses out.”

D’Artagnan frowned. “Is this like the Force?”

“Listening to the Force is the first and most important lesson of a Musketeer.” Porthos squeezed his shoulder, the grip warm and familiar. “What do you hear?”

Noises of the pipes and vents and machinery. People calling loudly to one another. Others whispering. Footsteps. The clattering of vehicles and person bumping into person.

And there, beyond the noise, tucked away in a corner, there was a sound where it shouldn’t be.

  


D’Artagnan lost the others somewhere between hiding from a patrolling troupe of Red Guards and peeking into a large door that turned out to be the entrance to the garbage chute. He didn't stop when he realized he'd lost them. Only one thing was on his mind. 

The princess was in a cell, pacing in tight circles. She looked up when d’Artagnan jiggled the lock and cracked open the door.

She faced him and raised her chin defiantly. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

“I’m d’Artagnan. Princess Constance, right? We got your message. I’m here to rescue you. Come on!”

“You?"

"I'm a Musketeer," D'Artagnan said proudly. "In training," he added at Constance's skeptical look.

“We?” the princess echoed, but she was already following him into the hallway. “Do you have an extra blaster?”

“No, just this one— Hey!” he protested when the princess tried to swipe his weapon. “This is mine!”

“I’m a better shot than you,” she insisted.

“Are not.”

Their argument was interrupted by a pair of Red Guards rounding the corner. Both intruders and guards stopped short in surprise.

Two flashes of a blaster later, d’Artagnan was bowing to Princess Constance. “Your Highness.” He swept his arm toward the downed guards.

Constance stepped daintily over them and bent to take one of the guards’ blasters. She hefted it expertly and smirked at d’Artagnan. “Now we’ll be able to tell who’s the better shot,” she said.

  


Porthos’s flat desert boots made soft patting sounds on the smooth floors of the space station. They were a different person than they had been when they had last stepped into space. Worn down by sand and time.

Tired.

Porthos could hear the ghosts of Musketeers past. They strode through phantom lives and felt the pressure of a thousand eyes bearing down on them.

The Musketeers were waiting for judgement.

Ahead, beyond two sets of gilded doors, another waited for vengeance.

  


“Where are the rest of your party?” Constance muttered out of the side of her helmet. She twitched her head in annoyance. “How do the Red Guards see out of these?”

D’Artagnan was rattling along beside her in his own ill-fitting, ill-won Red Guard outfit. He gestured toward a large hexagonal door. “I think that’s a control room,” he said. “We should be able to find the others from there.”

They tossed aside the helmets and gauntlets with relief once they were inside the room. D’Artagnan was already at a series of screens that showed similar views of long stretches of empty hallway.

“What do your companions look like?” Constance asked.

D’Artagnan frantically scanned the screens. “One’s big and the other’s tiny.”

“That’s not helpful at all.”

“You’ll know them when you see them,” he assured her.

“I — oh.” Constance blinked at the unlikely pair in one of the hallways. The short one was creeping along with their blaster drawn, and the large one…. Well, they certainly were very large. “I think I found them.”

Something scuffed in the hallway outside the control room. Constance looked at d’Artagnan, both of them aware that their helmets were too far away to reach before they were found.

The footsteps neared.

In a moment of near-telepathy, d’Artagnan and Constance dove for each other’s mouths. When in doubt, the “fooling around on duty” shtick was always worth a try.

Constance barely heard the gentle cough over the beating of her heart and the feel of d’Artagnan’s hairy lip on her nose.

“Okay,” said a rough voice. Constance broke away from her rescuer and looked around to find the venerated Musketeer general Obi-Wan Porthobi in the doorway. “Not that that wasn’t quick thinking,” they said, “but believe me: you’re going to regret that very shortly.”

  


Constance could feel sweat forming on her brow. “You were supposed to take the droid to the Rebellion!”

The grey-haired person in front of her — the remnants of the greatest general of the Republic — raised an eyebrow at her. “We can leave you with the Emperor if you’re so fussed about it,” they said insolently.

The princess glared around at the ragged company. “This is the entire rescue party?”

“Well, yeah.” D’Artagnan, who stood close to General Porthobi, scowled at her. “Don’t be too grateful or anything." 

“I’ll be grateful after we get out of here,” she informed him tightly.

“The princess must be taken off-planet, to safety,” said Porthobi. “D’Artagnan, you go with Flea and Athos. I’ll be right behind you.”

When d’Artagnan nodded, Porthobi put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from rushing away. Constance lingered, eyeing them.

Porthobi murmured, “I’ve been proud to know you, d’Artagnan. You’ll be a stronger Musketeer than me. Or your mother.” They pushed d’Artagnan after Flea and Athos, but they were looking at Constance when they said, “Your destiny lies along a different path than mine. Now go!”

 

The soldier stopped in the middle of his report. “My lady Vader?”

Vader’s mask tilted down in acknowledgement. “There is someone here.”

“Yes, ma’am. An empty ship was retrieved --”

Vader stopped the soldier with a wave of her hand. “No,” she said. “A ripple in the Force. The last time I felt this…”

Her breath was loud in the quiet of the room. The mask kept it regulated, or else she might have given herself away when it tried to quicken with her heartbeat.

“My old master,” she finished.

She could remember how Porthos had always set the Force rippling, like the song of glass shivering through the air. They had pushed the very air out of their way, their great bulk and Force displacing everything else. It was impossible to not notice Porthos.

They were calling her.

  


The doors opened obligingly for Constance as the princess lead them toward the hangar where the _Millennium Wren_ was docked.

She cursed when the last door to the docking mess didn’t open.

“Here,” said d’Artagnan. “I’m good with computers; let me see.”

“So am I,” snapped Princess Constance. She ripped open the operating panel beside the door.

A high, long beep sounded throughout the hallway. The communication speaker next to the operating panel crackled.

“Door 438B2, report.”

D’Artagnan hovered over Constance’s shoulder. “It’s not — no, that’s not going to —“ He winced as another, higher-pitched beep joined the first.

D’Artagnan said, “I think the base is the problem, it’s--”

“Magnetically sealed!” Constance finished. They shared a glance of surprise and pleasure that someone else had disassembled the workings of the system just as quickly.

“Door 438B2, report.”

“One of you deal with that!” Constance hissed.

Flea was closer. Xe punched the comm button, froze, and stared wildly at d’Artagnan.

He gestured at xir.

Xe swallowed. ”Uh, no," xe stuttered, “everything’s fine. It’s all fine." It was becoming clear that improvisation was not Flea's strong suit. "We're fine, thanks. Um, how are you?”

It was d’Artagnan’s turn to smirk. Flea scowled at him and shot the speaker. “There,” xe snapped. “Now they can’t keep asking us questions.”

D’Artagnan stared at xir incredulously. Constance looked up as well and said, “Are you stupid? They’ll know something’s up!”

Flea looked at the two faces, matching red with anger, and did the only thing left: xe yelled back. “I had everything under control until you barged in, your highness!"

The door opened. Constance cocked her head and raised an eyebrow.

Flea scowled. “About time we got a move on,” xe said, and strode past d’Artagnan.

  


Treville's words sounded in Porthos’ mind. _"My apprentice needs to hone their skills on reading a person..."_

Treville had been right, of course. Porthos had nursed their wounds on a desert rock for nineteen years, and had forgotten Milady.

All those years of mourning their student. All those years in the desert, watching d’Artagnan grow into a young man so different in looks than either of his mothers, but so alike in spirit.

All those years thinking that they had been betrayed.

And Milady had been aching for Anne all this time.

Porthos had felt Richelieu’s influence bending Milady to his will, all those years ago. Now they felt the disturbed Force around her and knew that she was still bent to another’s influence.

It surrounded her like a cloak. Beneath it, she was unchanged. She was still Milady: hurt, and lonely.

Porthos had failed her for the last time.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Porthos said, deflecting one of Vader’s swings.

“Are you going to stop me? Again?”

“D’Artagnan -- your son. He needs to find you on his own.”

“You Musketeers,” Vader snarled. “Always playing the game for the great good, always using people like your pawns.”

“He chose his own name, Milady.”

Vader’s sabre form faltered. Despite the opening, Porthos retreated.

“He’s like you,” they said, adopting an _en garde_ position. “He’s just like you. So angry.” Porthos couldn’t keep the sadness out of their voice. “I’m afraid we failed both of you, Treville and I.”

Porthos saw the jerk in Milady’s suit and hoped that she had guessed their meaning. “Strike me down," they added, trying to teach her even then; "strike me down, and I’ll become more powerful than you can imagine."

“Good,” said Milady, raising her sabre again in a form that Porthos had never before seen. “You’ll die without qualms.”

Porthos smiled, bittersweet. “What kind of Master would I be if I didn’t let you kill me?”

And they let their hand fall.

  


D’Artagnan saw the flash of lightsabres as he raced to the _Millennium Wren_. He stopped on the ramp. Ommer Porthos was fighting a figure cloaked in black, wearing a mask. Dark, curling hair spun out from under the helmet as the figure swirled out of the reach of Porthos’ sabre.

“Darth Vader,” Constance gasped. She tugged d’Artagnan up the ramp. “Come on.”

D’Artagnan resisted. He had to watch. This wasn’t the parent he’d known all his life. This was a real Musketeer.

Porthos and Vader fought like eerie mirror images of each other. They spun in and out of each other’s orbit like dancers. Porthos seemed to know exactly where Vader’s next hit would go, and Vader always moved just exactly a second before Porthos’ lightsabre would have struck her. They ducked each other’s blows in perfect synchronicity.

Porthos glanced toward the ship. D’Artagnan stumbled as the ramp he stood on started to rise.

“Porthos!” he yelled. He stretched out a hand. “Come on!” Constance was still tugging at him.

Porthos turned away from the ship. His lightsabre shut off.

D’Artagnan felt a strange thought run through his mind, as if someone else had spoken it:

 _Fair is fair_.

Then Vader’s sabre cut through Porthos’ body, and there was nothing left of d’Artagnan’s ommer but a crumpled robe on the ground.

The princess wrestled d’Artagnan up the stairs, and then Athos was pulling him up as the ramp closed behind him, and they were leaving the planet, with Porthos’ voice still echoing in his mind in a phrase d’Artagnan had never heard him say before.

_Fair is fair._

  


“We have to go back!” d’Artagnan yelled. The eager boy who had dashed to Constance’s rescue barely an hour ago was gone; now he was a wild-eyed wraith, clinging to the back of the captain’s seat.

“Hey, kid!” Flea barked. “Sit down and shut up!”

Constance drew d'Artagnan away and wrestled him into a seatbelt. “Don’t talk to him that way!” she spat at the pilot.

“It’s my ship, princess. I’ll talk to him however I want.”

Constance put a blanket over d'Artagnan's shoulders and sat next to him. D'Artagnan's eyes were red-rimmed.

He was nothing like the men on Alderaan. His face was plain and unpainted, and his clothes were unfashionable (to say the least). His shoulders were thin and bony under her hands, a shadow of what she used to be. She liked her curves now, and she always kept makeup handy. She was an Alderaan woman by all rights.

Yet, somehow, d’Artagnan was still a comfort. There was something about him that reminded Constance of…

Of her mother.

She shook off the thought.

“I was named after the farm,” d’Artagnan muttered.

“What?”

“I named mys-- I was named after the farm. The one Porthos and I lived on. The d’Artagnan farm.”

Flea barged into the room and interrupted the moment. “Hey, do either of you think that escape was too damn easy?”

Constance rose. “Casualties are easy?” she said dangerously.

Flea ignored her. “And you! Kid!”

D’Artagnan looked up.

“You ever think of telling me that you and the old one were mixed up with the Musketeers? I never would’ve taken you on if I’d known.”

“Show respect to our fallen ally!” Constance demanded.

“I should’ve known you were with the Musketeers too, princess. Well, guess what? As soon as I dump you off, you’re never seeing me again.” Flea’s arm cut through the air in a decisive, vicious gesture. “The Musketeers never did anything for me. It wasn't the Empire that burned my home, princess. It was your republic. I was eight years old when their armies came through, on some colonist’s word that we were hiding rebels. My whole family died when our building collapsed on us. Whole families. An entire neighborhood.”

Constance faltered. “But the Musketeers were warriors of peace.”

“They were warriors, all right. They didn't preserve anything but the status quo. As long as they were on top, they didn't care about us. Their hokey religious crap never did anything for anyone but them and the politicians they served.”

“Maybe so,” said d’Artagnan. His voice was squeaky. He cleared his throat and blinked back his tears. “I don’t know anything about the Musketeers. I thought I did. I thought I knew my ommer. But.” He swallowed. “What I knew about them, I loved.”

That was when the Empire began firing on them.

  


The ship rocked with multiple blows. Flea swore foully and ran to the control center. "Our shields are up, but we're going to catch a lot of damage if we don't get out of here! Athos, what're the light-speed levels?"

Athos was waist-deep in a complicated tangle of cords inside a hatch. He shouted something garbled to Flea, who cursed again. "Okay. You two, take the wheel! I'm going to get us out of here!"

Constance hurried to the control board. She stopped short, fluttering her hands over the keys and switches.

"I don't know how to operate this!" An edge of hysteria crept into her voice.

The ship-wide comm buzzed and then Flea’s voice snarled out of it: "Figure it out, princess.” Over the comm, xe grunted with effort. A second later, the ship shuddered as its secondary engine kicked into action.

D'Artagnan scrambled over the pilot seats and closed his hands over Constance's on the controls. "Like this," he said, and pointed the cannon. Constance pulled the trigger.

An Empire ship blew apart in a metallic spectacle.

D'Artagnan cheered. Constance looked at him, a wild look in her eyes and a grin on her lips, and half-shouted, "Do that again!"

D'Artagnan matched her grin and aimed the cannon again.

They took down here more ships before Flea hollered, "Hold on to something!"

The _Wren_ took a steep dive too fast for the gravity enforcers to follow. D'Artagnan felt his feet lift off the floor and his stomach swoop in a joyful thrill, before he was swung into the wall.

Constance was knocked off-center too, but she grappled for a hold on the cannon controls. She wrapped her hand around the trigger and pulled. Her aim wasn't true, but the beam struck a ship in its wing. The injured ship spun a full rotation and careened into one of its neighbors. Both ships exploded.

Constance, unable to help it, whooped into the comm.

"Nice aim!" Flea yelled. "Now where are we going, princess?"

"You've got the light speed ready?"

The grin was evident in Flea's voice. "Where will your carriage take you tonight?"

“Yavin IV!" she shouted. "Take us to Yavin IV!"

The universe paused, stretched, and threw them into light.

 

D’Artagnan followed the others out of the ship — confidently aristocratic Constance and cocky Flea with immovable Athos beside xir — hanging back and looking around.

Princess Constance was clad in a robe that, though stained, clung softly to her body, her breasts and hips curving soft and round under the fabric. D’Artagnan's eye lingered on her curves even as he felt the familiar sense of itching discomfort whenever he thought too closely about bodies. He had to look away.

The closeness of the surrounding landscape was hardly any better. After a lifetime of long horizons and endless desert, the forest of Yavin IV was strange and claustrophobic. The air was thick and hard to breathe.

But the green — it was everywhere, and in so many different shades, and in all kinds of _textures_. D’Artagnan hadn’t known that green could look like this.

So this was a Rebel planet.

“Constance!”

A brown-skinned womyn with her frizzy hair flying behind her raced to Constance and threw her arms around the princess.

Constance buried her face in Sylvie’s flyaway hair. Sylvie smelled like ink and blaster oil. Constance would not cry now: she had so much still to do.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Sylvia said into Constance’s shoulder. “We feared the worst when we heard about Alderaan.” She eased back. Hesitated. “Your mother?”

The tears came then.

“Oh, Constance,” said Sylvie, moving to pull her in again; but Constance sucked in the tears and stood taller.

“I have the plans to the Death Star.”

  


When Constance was a child, her mother would take her into the royal gardens for afternoon picnics. Constance would carry the basket the scant twenty yards from the door, and proudly lay out the plates and dishes. She hadn’t thought it strange that they picnicked with delicate ichorglass plates instead of sturdier ware.

Constance would eat until she was full, and then after that. Her mother was a warm and constant presence at her side, so bright that Constance could see her even with her eyes closed.

The warm sun on the lawn would soak into Constance, soak in and in, and Mother would be so firm and bold in Constance’s mind, and the birds would be buzzing in the trees, and everything would swirl together in Constance’s tummy like almost-too-much iced creme; so vibrant and alive that she could almost expand out of her tiny body with the joy of it all.

Now, it felt like someone had turned the music off.

But _everywhere_.

Constance kept expecting to hear the birds and the quiet clink of her mother’s fork against her plate. She’d be brushing her hair or going over battle plans and she’d suddenly realize that it was quiet, as if someone had just shut off a music player in the next room and she hadn’t noticed the music until it was gone.

She didn’t sleep because when she closed her eyes she reached for Mother

and Mother wasn’t there

(Mother wasn’t anywhere anymore, not even in a box on a faraway planet, there was _nothing,_

 _no ashes even_ )

and the overwhelming sickly feeling started in her stomach until she bolted out of bed and vomited it out. There should have been a palace and a lawn and nearby guards and the warm sun and Mother and food in her belly, and there was

nothing.

The emptiness rang loudly around her as she heaved

and if she reached out, there would be nothing for her to hold onto

(she dug her fingers into her thighs and made marks with her nails and hoped it would be enough that she was not nothing, not yet).

  


Sylvie pointed to the schematics of the Empire’s Death Star.

“This appears to be the only weakness,” she said. “A small ventilation hatch, right here, in the 6E quadrant.” She looked over the silent assembly. “It’s a tough shot. The Empire will send out forces once they spot us on their radar, and whoever’s out there will have to dodge those ships while aiming for a square meter of unprotected space on the Death Star.”

“Add to that the fact that you can only take a shot once every time ‘round the Star,” drawled Flea, who was slouching in the doorway. Constance shot xir a poisonous look. Flea raised xir eyebrows at her. “I’m just saying, it looks like a fool’s errand.”

“You would know about those, would you?” Constance asked coldly.

D’Artagnan cleared his throat. “I don’t think it looks that bad,” he said. “I used to shoot desert rats from about that height, on Tatooine.”

Sylvie stared at him. “You did not.”

“Did!” he insisted. “They’re pretty big, on Tatooine.”

Recollecting herself, Sylvie looked around the room. “Whatever prior experience our pilots have, we need every willing and able body to assist in this attack.” She paused, and added somberly, “It is likely that most will not return from this mission.”

D’Artagnan looked around the room. Flea had disappeared from the doorway. Constance was looking at her hands folded in her lap. The other rebels were glancing at each other. Some took each other’s hands. Others shook their heads and looked away.

D’Artagnan stood. “I’m in.”

  


Constance found herself disappointed somehow when Flea demanded money. She didn’t know why she should feel so insulted. Nothing about Flea's half-baked rescue had suggested that xe was there for Constance.

But it would have been nice.

Perversely, she found herself defending Flea when d’Artagnan met her for pre-flight checks. D’Artagnan kept glancing across the hangar to where Flea and Athos were loading the _Millennium Wren_.

“Xe said xe needs to pay off her debts,” Constance said consolingly. “A smuggler’s business is complicated.”

“I know,” d’Artagnan said. “It’s stupid. I just thought…” He ducked his head and pretended to check his uniform again. “I just wish Porthos were here."

Constance rose to her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. D’Artagnan’s face lit up.

D’Artagnan couldn’t stop grinning as he crossed the hangar. Constance’s kiss was the first time he’d been kissed as a boy.

He faltered as Athos caught sight of him and said something to Flea. The pilot looked around and scowled at d’Artagnan.

“I’m not going to ask you to stay,” d’Artagnan said preemptively.

Flea’s scowl darkened. “Great. Fine. I didn’t want to.”

“I just want to say something. Flea, listen. I don’t know what the Musketeers used to be. All I have is my mother’s sabre. My ommer was really someone I didn’t know.” He turned the lightsabre over in his hands. “I always thought being a Musketeer would be so cool. Like pretending to be knights and pirates.” He looked up and grinned crookedly at Flea. “Now I’ve met you and Constance, so I guess I’ve met a real knight and a pirate.”

“Watch it, kid.” 

D’Artagnan did a bad job pretending to be abashed. “Right: an entrepreneur, not a pirate. But I guess what I’m saying is… I still want to be a Musketeer. But not the kind of soldier you spoke of. The Rebellion is trying to make things right. I want to help. If that means changing what a Musketeer is, well.” He shrugged. “I’d do it for the people you and Constance have both lost because of the Republic and the Empire.”

  


The ships shot out from Yavin IV’s airspace. D’Artagnan adjusted his viewing scope nervously. His veins were thrumming, but even the excitement or going up against the Empire was muffled by the ever-present joy of being in the air.

This was better than shooting desert rats; better than flying a few meters off the ground to go into Gascony; better than any flight he had ever imagined. Even being in the midst of real outer space in the _Millennium Wren_ couldn’t compare to this: d’Artagnan in control of his own fighter ship, shooting clear of the drag of gravity and soaring into the great awaiting darkness. He pushed at the controls a bit and grinned at the resulting flip.

“Red Team in position,” said the team leader through d’Artagnan’s earpiece. “Blue Team is going to be spotted in thirty. We’re going to dive in as they lead the Empire away.”

They sounded off, and then the colossus mass of the Death Star was nearing.

  


Flea had been on xir own for a long time. Xe still thought of xirself as a loner, even with Athos on board. He’d abandon xir for an empty room and a lifetime’s supply of wine, probably.

Xe’d cobbled together a life for xirself after xe was chased off of not one, but two moons. Xe’d won a ship in a card game and stolen a few parts to make it run. Xe’d found a boss to smuggle for, and when they got nabbed xe found another boss.

Xe’d made xirself a name, and xe'd made xirself something they could call xir. No one Flea had met had called themselves “xe,” so xe nabbed that like xe took everything else xe wanted.

It wasn’t a shade of in-between. It was something else altogether. It was something xe assembled xirself, and it meant: tough leather boots and a blaster at xir hip and xir quick wits and quick threats and long blonde hair.

There were no rules worth keeping unbroken, so there were no borders boxing Flea into a gender or a planet or a system. There were no rules in space except xir rules; no ship but xir ship. Nothing but the siren call of wide open space and the promise of the next pay.

And then -- Constance.

Athos made an inquiring noise as Flea paused in closing the _Wren_ ’s door.

“Forget it,” xe said. Xe kicked the control for the door. “Get to the controls, fuzzy. We’ve got places to go.”

  


Constance gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to tap impatiently on the holo table. The tiny specks that indicated d’Artagnan’s team were slowly creeping closer to the behemoth of the Death Star.

“They’re not close enough,” she muttered.

Sylvie appeared at her elbow. “What’s going on, Constance?”

Constance shook her head, staring at the holograms. “It’s not going to work. They’re not going to get there in time.”

Sylvie lay a comforting hand on Constance’s arm. “We don’t know that. We have some of the best pilots in the galaxy. We know the Death Star’s weakness. What about that d’Artagnan? He seemed confident.”

To her horror, Constance found tears springing to her eyes. “He’s going to get himself killed.” She blinked and, when that wasn’t enough, dashed the tears away. “He’s not going to make it.”

“Constance…”

The princess whirled away from the holo and dashed up the aisles of the war room, toward the door, toward the ship hangar.

Sylvie stood. “Constance! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to help!” Constance shouted.

  


D’Artagnan blinked sweat out of his eyes. It wasn’t sufficient; he had to pry a hand off of the controls and swipe quickly at his forehead. He could smell the fear collecting in his armpits.

A series of sharp staccato whines sounded just outside his ship. D’Artagnan jerked and almost drove his ship straight into the streams of fire coming from the Empire ship on his tail.

“Red Four, what’s your status?”

“I’ve got one on top of me,” d’Artagnan shouted into the mic. He was probably too loud, but the shooting and the frantic beeps of the droid atop his ship and the wind in the atmosphere of the planet-sized Death Star were building to a crescendo inside his head.

“Red Five, can you assist?” the team leader asked. Sounds of firing came through the headset. D’Artagnan was surrounded by imminent death.

“Red Five!” the leader called again. “Does anyone have eyes on Red Five?”

“Negative,” said Red Six.

“Shit. Red Four, can you—“ Red leader broke off. “What’s that? Bogey approaching! Red Four, an unknown on your wing—“

“I _t’s me!_ ” said Constance through the headset. “It’s me, d’Artagnan, don’t worry — just keep flying—“

Another shot from an Empire ship grazed d’Artagnan’s ship; he felt it pitch and toss. He checked the top of his ship and his stomach sank with dread.

“I’ve lost Bon-ACU!”

“Forget about it!” said Constance. “He was just an old droid. _Fly_ , d’Artagnan!”

  


Milady ignored the stares and whispers of the Red Guards and various Empire technicians who watched her stride into the ship hangar of the Death Star. They were nothing to her. Soon they would be nothing to anyone.

Richelieu wasn’t on the Death Star. He had known, maybe; or he had only been his usual paranoid, lucky self. It would take more than this to destroy him.

She summoned a solo-pilot ship to her with a gesture. A loud use of the Force, but she had become accustomed to such presentations of power. She smirked inside her suit as she felt the life Force of her watchers shrink away from her.

It felt good, to know that she was powerful.

~~(Good, if lonel—~~

    _(Don’t think that.))_

Her ship didn’t have clearance, but she didn’t wait for it. Someone as strong in the Force as she had no need for cleared airspace. She made her own path.

The swarm of Rebel ships was making its way around the Death Star a fifth time. Milady hovered in her ship, feeling out each ship as they buzzed over her.

_That one —_

Milady shot into the dark, leaving the weight of her position in the hangar behind her. She kept her attention on an unmarked Rebel ship that wove in and out of the surrounding ships. It was lighter and faster than the others, and used that in its favor to pick off Empire ships that tried to attack a red Rebel ship.

Milady left her lackeys to be destroyed, and maneuvered around the unmarked ship to focus on the one it was protecting.

She drew a breath.

She could feel the Force eddying around the pilot ahead of her. Here was the one who would destroy the Death Star. She was sure of it. The Force spoke to her more strongly now, when she was near this ship.

(It was saying something else, but she couldn’t understand it — only feel the pang in her heart that meant _Anne_ —

so she shut it out.)

Nothing hurt if she didn’t let it.

  


“Constance, I’ve got a shot in two minutes! What about you?”

“Negative, d’Artagnan. I’m not going for the Death Star.” In his holo-computer d’Artagnan saw Constance’s ship execute a half-circle flip to face the Empire ships on d’Artagnan’s tail. “I can’t pinpoint like you can, but I know how to shoot!”

D’Artagnan opened his mouth to rejoin, but someone interrupted him.

“D’Artagnan,” said his ommer Porthos. “Use the Force.”

He paused. “Um, hello?”

“Hello who?” said Constance.

He could have sworn he felt a light cuff on the ear. “Are you listening to me, child? Use the Force!”

“I think I’m talking to my ommer’s ghost,” he told Constance. “Hold on.”

“This is no time for indulging hallucinations, d’Artagnan!” Constance scolded.

“You’ve never had to face punishment for ignoring my ommer,” d’Artagnan muttered.

  


Constance had lost the panicked edge to her voice that it had carried the last time she’d taken a ship’s weapon controls. Now her voice was even and measured with acceptance.

“D’Artagnan, I can’t hold them all off for longer. They’re all focusing on you and I don’t know why.”

“It’s okay, Constance,” d’Artagnan reassured her. “It’s going to be okay.”

She swallowed. “It’s not.”

The new ship was edging in on d’Artagnan, and Constance couldn’t get a clear shot at it. This ship was different: larger, and somehow more sinister to Constance’s mind. Dozens of Empire ships were between her and the strange ship, and it was a matter of minutes before she was downed and d’Artagnan was left unprotected.

She checked the holo. D’Artagnan only needed a few more minutes. If she could make it that long, she would do Alderaan proud. Then she could rest.

Constance aimed at a cluster of Empire ships. But before she could fire, an enormous swathe of cannon blaster beam took out six in one messy swipe.

Constance yelped without meaning to.

“What?” d’Artagnan said. “What’s going on?”

“You kids get in some trouble without me?” Flea's voice burst over the speakers and Constance looked up, her chest constricting with joy.

“Flea?!”

“What’re you both thinking, going in without any backup?” Flea yelled over the comm; xe was grinning, jubilant. “You’ll get all both killed! Hang a right!”

  


D’Artagnan listened intently to the only parent he’d known speak through the void of space.

He listened to the song of the stars and the mournful song of the asteroids. He listened to the chaos of the past and the whispers of the future.

He closed his eyes and listened to the present, and heard its promising silence.

He reached up without opening his eyes and switched off his holo-computer.

“I’m switching off my headset,” he said.

“Wait—“

“I know what I’m doing.”

Silence.

He pushed the machines away, shut off the reader, and let himself fly into the void of the Force. 


	2. Reaching From the Ground Up

Fighting in the Rebellion was strange. 

After d’Artagnan’s success with the Death Star, the collected mass of farmers, smugglers, workers, pilots, and royalty that all worked as troops had started calling him “Commander d’Artagnan.” 

They called him “sir,” too, and d’Artagnan couldn’t stop himself from doing a double-take when he was so addressed.

So many shapes and smells and varieties of human. So much familiar and alien at once. 

Sometimes d’Artagnan wondered what would be different if he’d grown up around this variety; if he'd be able to navigate strange ceremonies and expectations as easily as Flea or Constance did. 

He imagined going into Gascony and meeting Twi’lek or smugglers. He’d sneak into the city on his own; or maybe Porthos — Porthobi — would take him. They’d watch on in amusement while d’Artagnan soaked up the wonders of strangeness, something he’d never found in their isolated life on the farm. 

He could have found out about _xir_ and _xe_ so much earlier. Parallel evolution. 

“I wonder how many genders there are in the galaxy,” he wondered aloud in his bunk. 

He closed his eyes. “I wonder how many you knew of,” he asked the ghost of Porthos. 

He had long suspected that Porthos wasn’t from Tatooine. Porthos was as dark as any inhabitant of the two-sunned desert planet, but their confusion with little things -- the water system that d’Artagnan could intuitively work at age three, the greeting and farewell customs, other everyday details -- betrayed Porthos’ off-world origins. But an alien and a Musketeer were different as two suns and a moon. 

“You didn’t tell me a lot,” d’Artagnan continued to his imaginary ommer. 

In his mind, Porthos looked ashamed. “I should’ve let you go into the city more often.” 

“No,” d’Artagnan said, automatically defending his ommer. “No, you were trying to stay out of sight, right?” He looked at Porthos. “You were trying to keep me safe. Because I…” He faltered. “Because of what I chose to be?” 

Porthos knelt next to d’Artagnan and laid their large brown hand on d’Artagnan’s. “Never,” they swore. “I have never been ashamed of you, d’Artagnan. You’re more important than anything. Not just to me, but to the galaxy. You’re a child of the Force. I had to keep you safe.” 

“Oh,” said d’Artagnan He looked away. 

Porthos’ weathered hand ruffled d’Artagnan’s hair. They tugged gently, until d’Artagnan met their eyes. “A parent always wants to protect their child.”

D’Artagnan opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling of his military bunk, and blinked away the tears. 

 

In the aftermath of Alderaan, Constance clung to the rigid boundaries of the self that she had constructed over time. Must behave like a princess. Must behave like a certain kind of girl. No funning around. No slacking off. Do not misuse the sacrifice of Alderaan for personal pursuits. Focus on the goal: be a leader, be strong, use your Alderaan and rebellion knowledge to find the empire's weak points. 

Do not indulge in talking to mercenaries who won't be sticking around anyway and might decide to use you for their personal, monetary, gain. 

“Hey!” 

D’Artagnan’s indignant voice made Constance look up. Across the mess hall, her friend was snatching his flight helmet away from a gray-furred alien’s grip. 

“Stop licking that!” he ordered.

The alien snorted apologetically and slumped away. 

D’Artagnan looked around and spotted Constance. His face lit up with the simple happiness he seemed to exude whenever he saw her. 

“The Hoth keep telling me the best place to sleep is inside a tauntaun,” d’Artagnan said as he sat down opposite Constance. “Is that a euphemism?” He placed his slimy helmet on the bench beside him. 

Constance tried to remember her Hoth cultural briefing. “I don’t think so. If I recall correctly, survivors of ice storms are frequently found inside their gutted tauntauns. How was the search party?” 

“No signs of life in the eastern quadrant. The Hoth are sure that any Imperial probes would be detected by their safety shield.” D’Artagnan picked up one of the sheafs of documents Constance was poring over. “What’s all this?” 

Constance hunched over her data pad again. “Plans for the next attack on the Imperial battleships. With the information that Flea and Athos brought back from their run to the Versailles sector, we know that the Empire is positioning most of its forces in that system. With… hmm.” Constance nibbled her thumbnail and frowned at her pad. Would it be more expedient to move their rebel fights to Versailles, or to position them at the Empire’s next target? 

D’Artagnan scanned the sheet he’d picked up. “This doesn’t look like battle plans.” 

“What? Oh, no. I”m brushing up on the different cultures of the rebellion.”

“Why don't you just be yourself?” d’Artagnan asked her. 

“It's not that simple,” Constance snapped. “We represent hundreds of planetary cultures here, some of which are dying out because of the Empire’s rule. I need to fix this, and to do that I need to present myself as a capable and strong leader. Yesterday a pilot called me weak because I let General Biggs explain a tactic; apparently women on his planet display their strength and intelligence by explaining an intellectual manner 'with grace and poise.' I need him to trust that I know what I'm doing.” 

Art put down his chopsticks. “I hadn't thought of it that way before.” 

“Mm hmm,” said Constance coldly. 

“I’m sorry,” d’Artagnan added. “You remember when that Florian spat at me because — you know?” 

The second week after their move to Hoth, after a bit of the shine had worn off of d’Artagnan and Constance’s heroics, a rebel fighter had spat at d’Artagnan because of his “audacity” to try to choose his own gender. 

“I just fought it out, and that was the end of it.” D’Artagnan shrugged. “No one’s told me that I’m not being a person the right way.”

Constance cradled her forehead in her hand, staring into the harsh screen of the data pad. She wished she had her mother to hold her, one more time. She wished she could pretend that she would see Alderaan’s cities again after she was done on Hoth. 

“There's no one here I can truly trust,” she said quietly. “I'm never going to see anyone I know again.” 

D’Artagnan nodded. “I feel the same way. Porthos and me had to run with what we had, and no one on Tatooine ever leaves unless it's an emergency.” 

“I wasn't talking about your dried-up planet,” Constance said in a tone too tired to be venomous. “I've left my home behind before. I know what it is to sacrifice for the rebellion. Now what's it got me?” 

D’Artagnan put the paper down and looked at her. “Alderaan.”

Had he forgotten? “Yes. Alderaan.” Constance stared at her pad for a moment longer. “Anyway. I should get back to work. Go debrief with Sylvie, will you?”

D’Artagnan didn’t listen. He leaned forward. “When the Empire captured you… What were you doing in that space anyway?” 

“I was in charge of bringing the Death Star plans to the rebels. Ostensibly we were on a political visit but we had the plans stashed in our database.” 

He was starting to grin. “So… You were a smuggler.” 

“No, I was—” 

“You're a smuggler! Just like Flea!” D’Artagnan was laughing. “You know what we say on Tatooine? ‘Like calls to like.’” 

“I'm nothing like xir! And to even insinuate that anything within me calls to — well, that's ridiculous.” 

Flea appeared behind d’Artagnan. “What’s ridiculous, princess?” 

“Nothing!” Constance jumped up and collected her data pads. “I have to get back to work! Excuse me!” She hurried away, her face flaming, with d’Artagnan’s laughter and Flea’s confused protests fading behind her.

 

There was no word for "thanks" on Tatooine. On a desert planet, everyone knew what's needed to survive, and they did it. If one person couldn’t do their part, someone else picked up the slack. There was an understanding that the work would be paid back later. Even the privileged class of moisture farmers knew how close to dehydration they were. Everyone was keen on getting the job done, and if one person couldn’t do it then another would. 

As for the rich, they didn’t bother with manners; they liked to use force to make others do their work, and no thanks were given. 

D’Artagnan got used to giving thanks. He thanked his fellow pilots for saving his ass, and thanked Constance for saving him a plate of food, and thanked Athos for letting him work on the _Wren_ for an afternoon. 

He’d never thought of his life as a thing to be thankful for; it was just a fact. He existed, and someday he would not. The first time he sat in on some rebels’ thanks-giving new year ceremony and heard them thank the universe for the gift of life, he came away with a strange squirming uneasiness in his gut. 

Was there someone he needed to thank for giving him life? Should he thank every sandstorm for sparing him? Should he send a thought to every womp rat who decided not to bite him in his youth? 

He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to be beholden to anyone for living. Life was an accident, and he had managed to come this far without ending it through another accident. He didn’t owe anyone but himself. 

Life hadn’t been a gift for many on Tatooine, anyway. D’Artagnan lived as good a life as could be had for an orphaned change-boy on a desert planet. Others were caged, by invisible means or by real bars. He’d learned in his sixteenth year, from the farmers around their area, that Tusken raids had lessened because slavery had picked up on the rim planets, and fewer freed slaves were taking up desert space. The Tuskens had their land back. The humans were inconsequential. 

D’Artagnan had pestered Porthos into trying to help the slaves they saw in the city, or the homeless who begged for change on the streets. Porthos had known they couldn’t attract attention. They forbade d’Artagnan from helping slaves. 

Life wasn’t a miracle worthy of thanks. There were good things to experience, and bad things; but for the most part, life was something that was inflicted upon those who had it. 

The missions outside the Rebel base took them to planets on the edge of the Empire’s influence. D’Artagnan was benched after he broke from protocol and set a slave market into chaos and ruin, unable to stand by and watch even once more. Ommer Porthos couldn’t stop him. 

D’Artagnan spent his two weeks grounded showing seven former slaves how to play breakball. 

 

Flea shoved xir way through the gaggles of partiers with a new bottle. Xe poured the four of them another round and sat down, raising xir glass high. “What’s the toast this time?” 

“To the Empire,” suggested d’Artagnan. Constance kicked him under the table. “Hey!” 

“We’re not toasting our enemy,” she scolded him. 

“No, listen,” he insisted. “To the Empire, for putting a blockade on Cornelian whiskey, so all the shipments of it had to sit in storage for months, so the merchants would be so eager to get rid of it that they’d sell it to the rebellion at the lowest cost.” 

“Ever,” added Flea. 

“Ever!” he agreed. 

Athos growled something in agreement. 

Constance stood up. “Hear that, rebels?” she shouted, raising her glass. “This round’s a thank-you to the Empire, for this fine whiskey!” 

The close-pressed crowd cheered and toasted each other and the Empire. Out of sight, across the room, someone hollered as a new crate of bottles was carried in. 

Flea grinned at d’Artagnan. “You’re not as dumb as you seem, kid.” 

D’Artagnan raised his glass. “Truth.” He drank deeply, swallowed, and burped. After a moment he asked, “How dumb do I seem?” 

Athos growled out a laugh. 

“And you—” Flea poked Constance— “are not as high and mighty as you want us to think.” 

“I never said I was high and mighty!” Constance squeaked. “I get into all sorts of trouble.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I'm a scoundrel too.” Constance swayed closer to Flea, staring into xir eyes. D’Artagnan felt his buzz fade away as an electric tension grew in the air between his friends. He was suddenly very aware of how close their lips were. He looked at the table. 

“Prove it,” Flea whispered. 

Constance blinked. “I stole a baby once,” she said. 

Flea sat back in surprise. 

Constance clapped a hand over her mouth. “No! I mean—” 

“Did you steal a baby like I stole the _Wren_ , because,” Flea gestured at the baby-less expanse of table. “I don't think you've still got it.” 

“That's not what I meant, I didn't keep—”

“Tell us the truth,” d’Artagnan said. “You wanted a tiny you to follow you around and call you princess all day.” He hid behind Flea as best he could when Constance turned her glare on him. “Help! She's blaster-ing me!” 

“That didn’t come out right. Listen. I didn't steal him,” Constance said with drunken dignity. “I kidnapped him.” 

D’Artagnan snorted. 

“No! I — that's what the official report said but I really—”

But Flea and d’Artagnan were already laughing. D’Artagnan found Flea’s shoulder and leaned into it. Flea dashed away tears. 

Constance looked like she was about to stomp her foot. “It wasn't like that! The baby was sick.” 

Flea managed, between hiccups, “‘Sick’ like ‘sick dance moves’?” 

“I don’t know your off-planet slang, Constance said peevishly. “He was ill. His mother the queen wasn't doing anything to help him. So I took him to a steam house.” She nodded decisively. 

“Wait,” said d’Artagnan. “The queen? Your mother…?” 

“Not _my_ queen.” 

“You were a visitor! Flea said half rising out of xir seat, and pointing at Constance. “You were a guest on their planet and you — you stole their royal baby!” 

Constance opened her mouth, hesitated, and closed it again. D’Artagnan slid out of his chair and collapsed on the floor, laughing into the rough concrete of the mess hall. 

“The steam cleared his lungs,” Constance said over his and Flea's combined laughter. “He would've died without me. I was exonerated! _D’Artagnan_!” 

 

“Besides, Flea’s staying. Right, Flea?” 

Flea smirked at d’Artagnan. “Sure. I’ve been running from the law all my life. A little rebellion won’t hurt my résumé. Besides, they call me King of the Court here.” 

Constance snorted. “Court of what?” 

“Courting the heart,” Flea said, just to see Constance scowl. Xe winked at d’Artagnan. “Or of the battleball court. Right, kid?” 

D’Artagnan looked away, unsure how to respond. He felt familiar twist in his gut that tore him up whenever someone mentioned things like flirting or sex. 

It was probably something to do with his body, how he was taught that girls had his kind of parts; how he’d had to sneak around to be a boy and tell ommer Porthos, hands trembling and voice shaking, instead of Porthos just knowing. 

But Constance hadn’t mentioned anything like that happening to her, not in all the late-night conversations that she and d’Artagnan had shared after the meetings were over and Constance had obtained a few bottles of brew. She had told d’Artagnan about Alderaan’s three genders and what she called her “journey” through two of them, and she’d explained about the customs of her planet’s different countries. 

She had held d’Artagnan’s hand through his faltering explanation of growing up with just Porthos and nothing else for guidance. They had curled up together in the shadows of the fighter planes, and d’Artagnan had confessed his longing to leave Tatooine and his search for others like him into the curve of Constance’s shoulder. 

In the vulnerable moments of the dark, when the night was still and no one was stirring in the whole base, Constance had even told d’Artagnan about Flea, or at least talked around xir: how Constance always fell in love hard and rarely fell out of love. How Constance was tired of being judged for what her body lacked in other’s expectations. How Constance was scared of impermanence. 

But Constance had never said anything about the awkward stuttering of d’Artagnan’s brain whenever someone insinuated that he must have had sex. Or the low-level panic about his body that he wore like a second skin every day, which only increased when he thought about touching another person intimately. 

He was made wrong. That was fine. He could fold that away inside him and still be a hero. 

 

Flea trailed Constance into the electrical room. Constance knew, even without looking, that xe was swinging xir hips lazily. Tauntingly. Goading Constance into looking. 

She ground her teeth. 

“C’mon,” said Flea, leaning against the wall and watching Constance tear out a faulty piece of wiring. “I know we’ve got something, you and I.” 

“Do you?” Constance said icily. 

“Yeah, I do. Your princess persona doesn’t scare me. Stop running away. Constance--” Flea slid closer, right into Constance’s personal space. Xe put a finger to Constance’s chin and tilted her head down to look into Flea’s eyes. 

“What are you afraid of?” Flea asked. 

Constance almost laughed. Her eyes widened. How to answer? 

“It’s not a persona,” she said. 

Flea raised an eyebrow. “What isn’t?” 

“The title of princess is highly valued and respected on Alderaan,” said Constance. She couldn’t stop her eyes flickering down to Flea’s lips. “I worked hard to be elected princess, and I’ll have you kno--” 

Then Flea kissed her and she forgot the rest of her rambling argument. She melted into Flea's hold, let xir press her against the wall.

 

Constance found Flea self-medicating. 

"Xe's popping pills," she fumed to d. “Flea took that mission to Aghenf’f just so xe could snap up a cargo of illegal medicine.” 

D hesitated. It seemed a bad idea to say, “so?," or to point out that their entire operation was, technically, illegal. 

"Porthos gave me smuggled drugs all the time," he said instead, trying to casually tinker with his fighter ship in the hope that she'd leave him in peace.

Porthos had regularly acquired some off-market pills for d’Artagnan. He had a vague memory of Porthos taking some once, and hazier recollections of the days that had followed. Porthos had been in high spirits, letting d’Artagnan work on the spokes outside and cooking a complicated dinner that night instead of just roasted lizard. But those days hadn't lasted; and the next time ommer Porthos came back with a satchel of pills for d’Artagnan's night-lung, Porthos' happy-making pills hadn't been included. 

“That’s different,” said Constance. “They were your guardian. Flea is just taking medications without approval. What if xe had some kind of reaction to them? Xe doesn’t know what’s in there! Xe could be swallowing poison!” 

“Well, you were just saying how we’ve all left our homes behind,” said d’Artagnan. “How is anyone here supposed to keep up with our meds when we don't have our regular planetary supplier on hand?” He saw the scowl on Constance’s face and added hastily, “I mean, you must take something, right? For the transition?” He gestured clumsily at her form. 

“I don’t,” said Constance. “My religion doesn’t believe in altering our bodies with medicine.” 

D’Artagnan looked down. “Ah.” 

When Flea came to him later and offered a box of illegally-obtained injection sticks that would put hair on his face, d’Artagnan didn’t say no.

 

When d’Artagnan wasn’t practicing his sabre forms or patrolling, he spent his time on the base with Flea and Athos on the _Millennium Wren_ , or with Constance and her feverishly developing plans for the Rebellion. 

It only took so long before his boredom moved him to study Constance’s work over her shoulder. When he began asking her questions about battle tactics or incoming information, she explained — shortly, at first, and then in detail as she realized that d’Artagnan’s curiosity came from the same hunger to _know_ that she had always felt. She taught him how to mobilize troops, and how the Rebellion chose its hideouts, and which politicians could be trusted to smuggle them information. D’Artagnan’s mind complemented Constance’s: where she saw ways to maneuver, he saw where to strike. 

In return, d’Artagnan passed on his ommer’s lessons in fighting. 

Constance came alive in sabre training. She was good with a blaster, but the first time she disarmed d’Artagnan in sabre combat she whooped, spinning around in victory. 

She understood the training ball in a way that d’Artagnan still couldn’t reach; somehow, the machinery made sense to her. D’Artagnan had the upper hand on her in person-to-person combat, though; somehow, the tiny muscle movements and breaths that the training ball lacked helped him with a human opponent. 

They were equally matched in temper. Athos once found them hitting each other with fake sabres, and had roared with laughter instead of becoming alarmed Since then Athos kept a tally of how many times each of them threw down their sabre in frustration and stormed out of the room. 

 

D’Artagnan wiped his arm across his forehead and opened his eyes again. The practice ball that Ommer Porthos had given him on their first and only interstellar trip together hovered tauntingly just out of reach. It beeped impatiently at him. 

“I’m just getting oriented,” he told it. He closed his eyes again and readied his sabre. 

In his mind, the training ball was the Death Star. 

“D’Artagnan,” said Porthos. Their warm voice and rounded vowels were out of place in the cold practice room. “You’ve got to learn how to use the Force.” 

“I’m trying,” he grunted. 

“You’re letting your emotions guide you.” 

“I can’t just delete my feelings like you can.” The Death Star was faster than him every time. It zapped him again. 

“Musketeers don't ignore their emotion,” Porthos said. “They examine it and release it into the Force.” 

D’Artagnan snorted. “Sounds a lot like repression to me.” 

“Go to the Dagobah system. Find Ninon, the Musketeer who instructed me.” 

D’Artagnan swung and missed. A real shock. “Some help you are.” 

_Some Musketeer I am._

Nothing answered him. D’Artagnan grunted and tried to block the ray with his lightsaber again. The laser zapped him and he shook out his hand. 

_Examine your emotion._

Shit. What was he feeling? Frustration. Anger. 

Sorrow. 

His breath hitched as, for a second, he wished that Ommer Porthos was real enough to lay a hand on his shoulder and guide his steps. 

He must be the only person in the galaxy whose imaginary friend used to be real. 

D’Artagnan thought of Porthos as they had just been: a warm voice in the back of d’Artagnan’s mind, somehow within and without at once. He pushed the sorrow and the anger toward Porthos, toward the Force, like a sacrifice.

D’Artagnan closed his eyes and relaxed into the Force. He let go of his worries about his binder and his ship’s repairs and the ache in his arms. 

The Force was around him, as Porthos had told him: in every molecule of air and grain of snow. 

 

“My scouts have found the Rebel base, Master.” Vader bowed her head respectfully. 

The hologram of the Emperor was still. 

“They are on Hoth,” she said. The mask the Emperor had gifted unto her regulated her voice as it did her breathing. Without it, she might have given herself away with the shake in her voice. The Emperor’s presence still made her tremble. He terrified her from parsecs away. 

“We will attack on your orders,” she said, and fell silent. 

The Emperor nodded slowly. His breath rasped; not from a breathing apparatus, but from age. Each year it seemed he could not live longer, but as old as he was, the Emperor refused to relinquish to death. 

“The pilot,” he said at last. 

Vader didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “He got lucky with the Death Star. I won’t give him the chance to get lucky this time.” 

“Luck!” The Emperor’s holographic image shook with the force of his disgust. Vader had felt the strength of Darth Plessis’ latent power, and she flinched internally in reflex. “The boy is strong in the Force. Too strong.” 

“I am stronger.” 

"He is the son of Milady de Winter," said Richelieu. His face distorted with disgust. 

“I did not sense it, master.”

“You are not strong enough.”

Vader bowed her head. "If he could be turned," she said, panic in her stomach, "he could become a powerful ally." 

Richelieu considered it. "Yes," he said slowly. "Can it be done?" 

_It will be_ , she vowed to herself. 

“Yes, Master,” she said aloud. “It will be.” 

 

For the third time in an hour, Flea tossed aside the spanner xe was poking the _Wren_ with, and stood up. 

Constance looked up from her sabacc game with Athos and sighed. “If you’re so worried about him, why don’t you radio him?” 

Flea scowled and pushed xir chair back in. “I’m not worried. I was just… getting caff.” 

“Mhm,” said Constance, unconvinced. 

Flea moved to the caff dispenser but didn’t pour xirself any. “D’Artagnan can take care of himself.” 

“Of course.” 

Flea whirled around. “Well, of course he can! That’s what I’m saying!” 

“I wasn’t arguing.” 

Flea deflated. “Oh. Well.” 

Constance weighed her words. “Flea, we’ve been working together for almost three years now, haven’t we.” 

Flea stared at her. “Yeah, I guess?” 

“And we’ve gotten to know each other, haven’t we?” 

Flea started to smile. “I guess we have.” Xe sauntered closer. “Something you want to tell me, princess?” 

“I know you.” 

“Mhm.” 

Constance turned her face up to Flea’s and cocked an eyebrow. “So I know you won’t stop clucking like a worried hen until you know d’Artagnan’s alright.” 

Flea spluttered, backed up, and then, seeing no way out of xir flirtation with dignity, turned on xir heel and stormed away. “Fine!” xe shouted, xir voice echoing down the hallway. “Fine!” 

A pause. 

“ _Fine_!” 

Finally the door slammed and the _Wren_ was quiet once more. 

Athos muttered something at a gravelly pitch. 

Constance nodded in agreement. “It’s embarrassing for everyone, really.” 

 

Snow to the north. Snow to the east. Snow in every direction. Nothing registered on the radar, and there was no sign of the strange meteorite that had fallen through Hoth’s atmosphere earlier that day cycle.

D’Artagnan finished scoping the sector of Hoth’s Berobi Plain. He tucked his binoculars into the bag at his side and dug out his walkie-talkie. 

“D’Artagnan to Base,” he said, pitching his voice above the relentless winds of the plain. “No life signs reported.” He frowned and shook the communicator. “No life signs. Base? Do you read me?” 

He grumbled and hit the walkie-talkie with the heel of his palm. “Hello?” he shouted. “D’Artagnan to Base!” 

A prescient urge to duck was all that saved him from the bolt. 

D’Artagnan, sprawled in a snowdrift, spat out a mouthful of snow and turned his head to look at what had missed him. A long, gleaming metal pole stuck out of the ground at a strange angle. Almost like…

It had been thrown from above. 

Then D’Artagnan was running over the plain, trying to evade the heavy javelins that hurtled toward the earth and sunk into the ground with such force that he heard them grate against the deep layer of rock beneath the snow; desperately focusing his thoughts on blending in with the snow; barely taking time enough to stop to look up and see who was firing at him. 

He already knew. 

The Empire had found them.

 

Flea’s expression, cold as the Hothian spring outside the airlock, forestalled anyone from trying to stop xir from readying an SP-QR ship and pointing it at the ‘lock doors. 

Constance had Flea all tied up in a knot. Just when xe thought they were getting closer — when xe thought xe was correctly interpreting the glances and long looks that Constance threw xir way — Constance would pull away like that. _Flea_ was the one who led lovers along on a string and teased them with the promise of kisses. Xe wasn’t the one who fell for the trick every time. 

Flea ground xir teeth again at the memory of the flush of humiliation that had crawled up xir back in the _Wren_ a few minutes earlier. 

Constance got on xir nerves, the stuck-up know-it-all. How come Flea couldn’t suggest something without the princess passing a comment on it? So what if Constance’s ideas found flaws in Flea’s plans — she just did it to make Flea look bad. So what if the plans they cooked up together were successful more often than not. It wasn’t like they were a _team_. Flea didn’t belong on the command crew of a galaxy-wide rebellion, but was Constance going to push xir out? Not if Flea could help it. Xe would come up with more loud-mouthed ideas for Constance to pick on, and so what if that meant xe had to be around the princess most of the time. It wasn’t like xe had anything else to do out here. 

(Flea didn’t ask xirself why xe hadn’t left yet. Xe was an optimist at heart, no matter how xe tried to hide it.) 

“General Flea, sir… uh, zir…” The ship tech gulped as Flea pinned them with a look. “We’re under lock four, General. The doors stay closed when there’s a storm force of point-four or higher.” 

Flea’s frustration with Constance sharpened into concern for d’Artagnan. “I’m going out there,” xe said firmly. “Open the doors.” 

“But anyone out there stands a seventy percent chance of—” 

Flea gunned the ship’s thrusters and stared down the technician. “Open the door,” xe said, “or I’ll make one.” 

Not surprisingly, the airlock doors opened. Flea sped out into the blinding snowstorm of Hoth. 

 

Constance stared at the sabacc board without really seeing the pieces. She had been considering her next move while Athos calculated the points, but her thoughts had drifted to the frozen, windswept seas of snow outside the base, where Flea and d’Artagnan might be. 

The two were often on Constance’s mind, despite her efforts to focus only on the rebellion. 

D’Artagnan continued to surprise Constance in his easy infiltration of her space. He was at her elbow at meals and across the room during war meetings, and when he wasn’t with her he was often in her thoughts. 

He wasn’t an itchy presence like Flea; he didn’t bounce around in her mind and confuse her and attract her all at once. D’Artagnan was a piece of her that she had never noticed she was wanting before. It just made sense, in a way she couldn't explain (much to her frustration), to have d’Artagnan beside her. He made sense. Constance didn’t feel complete because of him, the way ancient romantic lore said. She didn’t feel the urge to connect herself to him for the rest of their lives, either, the way Alderaanian women described their perfect match. She just knew that whatever happened, it was right that Constance and d’Artagnan had met. 

They had both agreed, in silent consensus, that their method of escaping suspicion on the Death Star would be a secret only d’Artagnan’s ommer should ever know. If Flea got wind of their fake kiss, the two of them would never hear the end of xir teasing. Besides the obvious glee Flea would get out of the story, there would no doubt be barbs under xir taunts. Constance had enough uncomfortable tension between her and Flea without adding any possible jealousy on Flea’s part. 

She could remember the plummeting in her stomach that repeated, ad nauseum, every time she thought she’d finally found a real relationship, only to find that she had been a fling or a joke or a good story to tell their friends. 

She could remember the soldier on the Death Star who had scoffed at her. She could remember the off-planet people she’d slept with, some of who’d been surprised or even disgusted at what her shapely clothes hid from view: all the parts no one seemed to expected. Being an alien on her own planet was bad enough; being the kind of alien that didn’t even seem to be a ‘she’ or a ‘him’ some days was another minefield she must navigate. 

As Constance had met more people in the rebellion outside of the older politicians and the underground rebels she had met on the political circuit in her position as a princess, she — like d’Artagnan, who remained wide-eyed and wondering about it all — found out more about a galaxy’s variation of gender expression. 

It was unfortunate timing that as she was trying to keep the traditions of Alderaan women alive, she was finding that she was more comfortable with non-binary pronouns.

Could she be Alderaanian if she wasn’t what she had always claimed to be while living on Alderaan? 

She’d started answering with a cold “Naboo” to the occasional unwelcome, “Hey baby, where are you from?” She knew that much of her heritage from her second mother —

— but Anne wasn’t anyone Constance wanted to be thinking about in conjunction with Flea. 

Athos growled abruptly, shaking Constance out of her thoughts. Looking up to apologize, she stopped short when she saw that Athos was by the control booth, twisting the knobs that controlled the communications center. 

She scrambled forward in the ship to crane her neck over his shoulder. “What is it?” 

Athos shushed her. His hairy hands (Constance had never figured out if Flea had been joking when xe said Athos was half-Wookie) tuned dials until a familiar voice emitted from the radios. Constance’s heart leapt at the panicked tone in Flea’s voice. 

“Come in! Can you hear us! Dammit, Athos, I know the _Wren_ ’s comm is working, I fixed it last week. Come in, damn you!” A loud smack, as if Flea was hitting xir handheld, zapped feedback down the line. 

Athos barked out an in his language — a command for Flea to be quiet, probably. Constance grabbed for the mic, but Athos was already grumbling into it. 

“All right!” Flea yelled. “Alright, you sloshed fleabag! They’re coming for us, but we have to make it hard for those Imperial drones to find us!” 

Constance finally grabbed the mic. “Who’s coming for you?” 

“The Empire!” 

“ _What?_ ” 

“Athos knows what to do. Follow his lead. Athos, the kid’s comm isn’t working — contact me on this — we’ve gotta go!” 

Flea’s end of the communication cut off with a sharp noise. Athos was already prepping the _Wren_ for takeoff, clearing the thrusters and rotating the grounding wings. 

“But the Empire can’t be here!” Constance protested. Athos didn’t answer, busy sealing the exits. The ship rumbled beneath her boots. “We would have seen them! How could they get so close without—” She grabbed the back of a seat as Athos pulled the _Wren_ out of the hangar in a sharp turn. 

The plains of Hoth opened up before them, white and cold and glittering everywhere with bolts of blaster light. 

The sky was lined with Imperial battleships. 

Constance froze only long enough to count them — she got to twenty squadrons of four before the horizon of the _Wren_ cut them off from her sight — and then she was flinging herself to the fore of the ship to grab the controls and help Athos pull the ship into a steep dive. 

She didn’t know how she found Flea and d’Artagnan so quickly when they were mere specks of gray against the white of the Berobi Plain. They were scrambling over the snow of the plain as an enormous, four-legged animatronic weapon moved ponderously, but steadily, closer. Each step of the giant moved it half a klick closer to the rebel base. At this rate, d’Artagnan and Flea would be squashed before the _Wren_ could reach them. 

Constance leapt for the blaster controls and trusted her track record to serve her once again. She fired in desperate clusters at the gleaming Imperial monster. The _Wren_ dove closer at a blinding speed. 

A flash of blue at the front foot of the machine caught her attention. D’Artagnan was charging at the machine, lightsabre held aloft; a tiny bug running at a giant. 

“You idiot!” Constance shouted. “What are you doing?” 

The machine suddenly paused in mid-step. Its leg twitched. Constance could see workers inside the clear glass of the head, no doubt controlling the machine. The head swung back and forth. The Imperial soldiers ran similarly back and forth, frantic, inside the head. Below, on the tundra of Hoth, Flea made a very rude gesture at the monster. 

In one electric flash, D’Artagnan’s sabre cut through the solid steel of the monster’s front leg. 

The _Wren_ flashed by the head of the machine and Constance caught the split second of terrible knowledge on the faces of the soldiers inside as the machine’s center of gravity tipped. 

Then Constance was urging the _Wren_ to fly faster, faster, and the shadow of the giant was falling over them. Athos growled and wrenched at the controls. The _Wren_ touched ground and slid on the snow. The front anchors snagged on a sheet of ice; the _Wren_ turned halfway around and kept sliding. 

Athos roared and hit the safety lock with his hand. Constance spun around to see the rear bay door slide open just in time to scoop two wild-eyed figures and a buzzing lightsaber into the _Wren_ ’s interior. 

“Go, go, go!” Flea was shouting, before xe had even struggled up to xir knees. The ship soared backwards into the air before the bay door was closed. The freezing wind caught Constance’s breath. 

Then the door was closed and they were right-way-about again, and Flea was at the ship’s controls threading it through the Imperial fighters attacking Hoth. 

Flea was swearing under xir breath. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Where do we go? Where do we hide from them?” 

D’Artagnan had sheathed his sabre and staggered to the front. “Dagobah!” he said urgently, leaning over the pilot’s seat. “Go to the Dagobah system!”

Constance only realized what Flea’s plan was when Flea nodded and keyed in the coordinates. 

She pulled on Flea’s arm. “I have to go back! The rebels need to follow an evacuation procedure—” 

“They know how to flee a sinking ship, Constance,” said Flea distractedly. 

“But the plans — I left them in the break room—” Constance’s hands flexed helplessly. “All the trinkets you and d’Artagnan brought me from Billoo…” 

D’Artagnan sat next to her. She leaned into his shoulder and closed her eyes against useless tears. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and no, no, no, she would not cry. Hoth had never been her home. She was alive, and… 

(and she should be glad of this, shouldn’t she?) 

She took a breath and made sure she could speak without a catch in her throat. “At least let me communicate to the base. They’ll think I’m dead when I don’t meet them at the secondary base site.” 

Flea’s voice was unusually quiet as xe said, “Sorry, princess. The Empire will intercept anything we transmit.” Xe cleared xir throat. “They thought you were gone before, and you showed them up.” 

D’Artagnan squeezed her shoulder and attempted to speak lightly. “You’re going to get a reputation for coming back from the dead.” 

Constance only stared out of the dock window until the stars stretched into infinity, and then into nothing. 

 

Porthos stood on the edge of the swamp, with their hands folded into the sleeves of their robes, and looked at the ship sinking into the mud. “This isn’t exactly what I meant when I told you to come here,” they said. 

A small rock sailed through their incorporeal torso. 

“No one asked you,” said d’Artagnan. 

Constance looked up from where she was rigging together a pulley system with Athos’ help. “What?” 

“Nothing. Porthos is making comments.” D’Artagnan scowled at the space of air where Porthos had been moments before. “They didn’t have to race through a cloud of vapor winds to land on this rotting planet, so they don’t get to judge.” 

Flea emerged from the thick forest and sheathed xir blaster. Behind xir, a tunnel of blasted and slightly smoking vines marked xir progress. 

“You still talking to ghosts?” xe asked d’Artagnan. “Keep it up and people will start to think you’re crazy.” 

D’Artagnan looked around at the gloomy, damp swamp. “It’s a good place to go crazy, I guess.” 

“You could set up a cave and become a hermit,” said Flea. “All you need is a stick to shake at people and a — Hey!” 

Flea stumbled forward as if pushed from something behind xir. Xe twisted as xe fell, aiming xir blaster at whatever was there. Xe squawked in surprise as the blaster slipped from xir grasp and floated up — up — until it was just hovering on level with the tops of the scrubby trees. 

Constance had her blaster out and pointed at the humanoid figure standing in front of the tree tunnel xe had made, but the figure’s attention was fixed on d’Artagnan. No — his belt. 

No — his lightsabre. 

His hand moved to protect it from view, but it was too late. The figure emerged further from the forest, completely focused on d’Artagnan. They wore their yellow hair in wide curls that were tucked into an elaborate pile on top of their head. Contrary to their surroundings, they wore a light hot-weather tunic of white that remained unmarred by the mud. 

“You bring that sabre to me,” they said, as if in question. 

“It’s mine,” said d’Artagnan. 

“Not you,” they said to him. “Shh.” 

Constance kept her blaster trained on the unknown person. “Let my friend go,” she said steadily. 

The figure turned to Constance and looked her up and down, seeming to disregard the blaster pointed at them. “Hmm,” they said, and cocked their head. “You did not say you were bringing me two to train.” 

Flea spat out some mud and twisted xir head around to look at the stranger talking to thin air. “Now _that_ is a certifiably crazy hermit.” 

Tentatively, d’Artagnan asked, “Porthos?” 

The stranger looked at him. They had eyes that were faded with age, but they pierced him keenly. 

“Are you talking to my ommer? I mean, Porthos? Obi-Wan Porthobi?” 

The figure straightened with a sigh. “Samm, I, is Ninon de Larroque. You must be Leia.” 

 

“You have anger in you, d’Artagnan.” Ninon sat atop a rock like it was a soft cushion and gazed down at him with a cool, even stare. 

“So?” 

“So, you must learn to ignore it.” 

“How can I ignore it?” d’Artagnan burst out. “I can’t be calm when there’s injustice happening. I’m a Musketeer, aren’t I? I should be able to stop evil.” 

Ninon tilted samm head. “What injustice?” 

D’Artagnan paced back and forth frenetically. “People on Tatooine didn’t understand me. And people on Constance’s planet hated her!” He glanced at Constance, who was still staring at the last living Musketeer. “And the Empire is destroying moons and killing planets. Vader--” He stopped, unable to go further. 

(Porthos, falling. The flash of a red sabre.) 

His chest heaved. He coughed and adjusted his binder. 

"Lived with this for many years, have you not?” Ninon asked. 

“Yes, of course.” 

“Then this is no different. You must live with injustice.” 

“But Musketeers--” 

“The Musketeers are gone,” Ninon said. 

“I can be a Musketeer! I’m not afraid!” 

Ninon’s eyes looked beyond him, seeing something that had happened long ago. “Afraid you are not. But you will be.” 

Samm hopped off the rock and stood in front of d’Artagnan. Samm was barely as high as his chest. 

“You must unlearn what you have learned. Porthos taught you of their state, yes?” 

“Their what?” 

“Their,” Ninon gestured broadly, “state of being.” 

“Oh! You mean their gender?” 

Ninon waved dismissively. “What they call it, I don’t know. But you, you were Leia, were you not?” 

A chill ran over d’Artagnan. “No,” he said automatically. 

“Not what you are now,” Ninon said impatiently. “What was given to you.” 

He raised his chin. “My name is d’Artagnan.” 

Ninon sighed, as if he were being deliberately obtuse. “You change your state. You become a different being when you let go of your old state. So it is with the state of being in the Force. You see?” 

“No.” 

Ninon shook sarr head. “Maybe I am lost in the past. My ways are not yours anymore. Porthos will explain better than I.” 

“Porthos _would._ ” D’Artagnan corrected sarr language, which he knew was a shitty thing to do. But he couldn’t help it when he heard the promise in Ninon’s voice and had to remember all over again that he’d never see his ommer again. 

“They _will_ ,” Ninon promised. “Look.” Samm lifted samm wrinkled hands and gestured at the boulder samm had just been sitting on. The boulder rose off the ground and hovered. Ninon pushed at the air; with an ear-splitting crack, the rock splintered like wood into a thousand small pieces. 

D’Artagnan coughed and waved dust away from his nose. 

“Its state is changed. You see? You could not breathe that rock, but now it is in your lungs. The rock was touching dirt and fauna, and now it resides in you. Now it is rock no longer. Your anger is touching your spirit.” Samm made a fist and held it to d’Artagnan’s belly, as if his anger was a physical thing sitting inside his gut. “Change your state, let go of your anger, and changed you will become.” 

Constance approached tentatively. “I think I understand,” she said. “D’Artagnan, when I discovered the Rebellion, everything changed for me. I had to learn who I was in the scheme of the entire galaxy. I haven’t just been Constance since I started working with the Rebellion. I added so much to myself that I changed into something new.” She rubbed her fingers together. “I got callouses from blasters. I learned how to lie to Imperial officers. I can never go back to being just Constance.” 

“That’s—” D’Artagnan cut himself off before he offended her. “I don’t see it that way. You’ve always been Constance. I’ve always been d’Artagnan. Okay?” 

“No, but it’s—” 

“It’s the same thing! The shit that I went through before I transitioned, that still exists in my past! I’m not a different person because I changed my name; my life didn’t start then, at eight years old. It’s all built up inside me. I want to be a Musketeer, but that doesn’t mean I suddenly don’t know how to run a farm.” 

“I’m not saying I necessarily agree with Ninon,” Constance said. “But I can understand thei— sarr reasoning. We all change drastically throughout our lives. Sometimes the person we are now is a stranger to the person we were years ago.” 

D’Artagnan flung his arms out. “But those two people aren’t meeting in the same space or time. They will never meet, because they’re the _same person_. Just because I’ve gone through experiences that I never had as a child doesn’t mean that I’m a different person now. It just means that I’ve been through some shit. Another person who went through the same shit would change different than me, okay? The way I change makes me d’Artagnan.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “No one can change me so much that I stop being who I am.” 

 

Constance was interested in the lessons, but she was antsy. 

The day that d’Artagnan finally succeeded in pulling the _Wren_ from the swamp, Constance came to him for a word about moving on from Dagobah. 

“You’re doing a good thing, d’Artagnan,” she told him. “But my place is with the Rebellion. I must go find them.” 

“You’re a natural at this,” d’Artagnan insisted. “Ninon said you could be taught too. I know you want to learn this. Look.” He clumsily raised his practice rock into the air. In his haste, he lost concentration and dropped the rock. “Still,” he said, moving past the mistake, “imagine what you could do with that! Imagine what we could do for the Rebellion, together! Constance, stay here with me.” 

“I can’t. I’m a general of the rebellion. I have responsibilities. I can’t just run away like you and —” Constance stopped abruptly, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking over at Flea. 

“I _know_ you,” he repeated, frustration rising in him. “You’ll never be satisfied with just standing behind a holoscreen and telling fighters where to go and what to do. You want to be in the middle of the action. Constance, don’t run away because you’re afraid of this.” 

Constance snapped her eyes over to his. “How dare you accuse me of running away,” she hissed. “This is all I have. I’m not going to lose it because I think I can play at being warrior.” 

She joined Flea and Athos in repairing the _Wren_ after that conversation. D’Artagnan’s efforts at helping were banned after his angry Force-scrubbing of the ship’s exterior took off a shielding plate. Flea snapped at him, but it was Constance’s total silence that hurt d’Artagnan more. 

 

D’Artagnan had lived with anger for so long. It had twined together with his fear and slept atop his spine. It raced like lightning down his nerves whenever he caught a particular glance or frown and thought, ‘I’m figured out.’ It had lurked within him each time that Porthos had told him to stay inside because a mechanic was coming to install new vaporators, or his ommer introduced d’Artagnan as his companion or friend or ward, instead of his nephew. 

The hate was just as powerful. Hate at the systems that had confined him and made him choose between ill-fitting pronouns or awkward, hidden transitions. Hate at Vader for killing Porthos; hate at Porthos for dying; hate at Ninon for putting him through these exercises; hate at himself for not being born right, for not accepting life as a girl and making things easier for himself. 

Ninon trained the hate out of him. Samm talked to him about gender as he went through his paces. Samm wore him out until he couldn’t help but listen to sarr talk of the history of the Musketeers and the hundreds of Musketeers who had chosen genders and pronouns that d’Artagnan had never heard of. Samm explained the structure of sarr pronouns, built hundreds of years ago on a planet that was long destroyed and used now only by survivors of the wars that had demolished their world. 

Samm deliberately angered him so his blood ran hot and he fell out of balance. Sometimes he saw the point of Ninon’s exercises. Most of the time, he figured samm just enjoyed watching him steam. 

He learned how to keep his anger inside him, a tightly packed core; and then he learned to let it wash through him. 

When he really concentrated on letting Ninon’s words run through him -- letting himself acknowledge the hurt and then dismiss it -- that’s when he thought he could hear Porthos best. 

“Of course you can,” Ninon said when he said as much to samm. “You hear the Force. Porthos is the Force.” 

“You mean, the Force is the afterlife?” D’Artagnan wasn’t sure what Ninon’s old planet had been like, but it seemed to have plenty of strange ideas. 

“It is the state of Porthos. They are like the boulder.” Ninon gestured expectantly. D’Artagnan obediently raised the boulder from its bed of moss. “Good.” 

Ninon absently fingered the edge of sarr yellow shoulder wrap as samm watched d’Artagnan go through his paces again. When he failed to lift an entire tree out of the swamp -- after Ninon had re-submerged it for the third time -- d’Artagnan kicked a nearby stump and then had to jump around for a few minutes, clutching his foot. 

“You are simply too old,” Ninon sighed. Samm made her way over to d’Artagnan and sat on the boulder he’d been about to fall upon. “The Garrison used to turn away youngsters older than eight. You have spent too long building up your emotion. It clouds your mind. It is a handicap that you can never remove.” 

Samm was quiet for a moment, and then samm said abruptly, “We turned away your mother, at once.” 

D’Artagnan was so surprised he sat down on the swampy ground. “You did?” 

Ninon nodded. “Mmm.” Samm didn’t seem inclined to say anything more. 

“Porthos said my mother was a Musketeer,” d’Artagnan said. “Did he mean my… my other mother?” He was still getting used to the idea of two mothers. How could that even work? He had assumed vaguely that his mothers had him in vitro, or in a lab, or any of the million kinds of inventions of inner planets that Tatooine couldn’t dream of — he was getting used to filling in the off-planet gaps with “if you can imagine it, it’s probably true.” 

“Ah, they told you that much,” said Ninon. “We did turn her away, but another Musketeer argued her case. The master of Porthos.” 

“I argued for her too,” said Porthos suddenly. D’Artagnan looked around, but only Porthos’ voice lingered in the swamp. 

“You did,” Ninon agreed, apparently unsurprised by Porthos speaking up suddenly. “Where we would be now, had you not?” 

“I’ve never regretted it,” Porthos growled, suddenly and startlingly loud in d’Artagnan’s ear. “Everything that came after was my fault. I should’ve been a better teacher.” 

“What came after?” d’Artagnan asked. 

Ninon looked at him for a long moment. Finally, sarr said, “I think it’s time to show you.” 

 

It would be nothing less than a lie for Charon to even pretend that he had forgotten Flea.

It was true that his life had been busy since the last time they’d parted. He’d climbed up, and up; the way he always meant to, the way that Flea had always envied. He’d climbed out of his wreckage of a village, and he’d climbed off his planet onto a ship, and he’d grappled and fought his way through the ranks of rogues and smugglers until all the big names knew him. 

But he had never meant to leave xir for that long without saying hello again. Charon and Flea, they were always meeting and hanging around each other until they butted heads enough that one or both of them took off on their own, and the other gladly went in the opposite direction. Scores later they’d look across a crowded bar at a meet, and they’d see the other there for the same con or deal. They wouldn’t even need to nod to each other. Sometimes they went entire trips on the same smuggling operation without talking, unwilling to expose their connection in case it stopped them from getting away with just a smudge more than their portion. 

And now Charon was a big name himself, in ways he’d never thought he would care about when he was scrabbling in the wreckage of his home at nine years old. 

He had often imagined the material trappings of his current lifestyle: the clothes made of imported fabric, and the warmth of his permanent home, and the effectually unending provisions of food that could be on his table in a minute. 

(He had a table now. And a kitchen and ten bathrooms and as many useless sitting rooms as he decreed. At twelve years old he’d dreamed of having a bed, let alone a chair, and he now he had a table. He could order as many tables made as he wanted, until the entire city was gridlocked with tables, and no one would question it.) 

He wouldn’t have believed his own story if he hadn’t lived it. Offers to become the ruler of a small city just weren’t given to smugglers over a game of cards. 

His whole life he’d run from responsibility. He hadn’t stayed to watch the desolate clean-up of his shattered town; he couldn’t bear watching the survivors try to rebuild, only for the wars to sweep through again. He’d run to the gaps between the stars and he’d bounced off of everything he could, scrambling away from devastation, determined never to stick to anything that he might learn to love. Anything that he might forget wasn’t his to love. 

In those bittersweet adolescent daydreams, Charon had known _what_ he wanted; but he hadn’t realized _how_ he wanted it until the chance was within his grasp. He had stilled and looked at that chance — and then he had jumped, grabbing for it, desperate suddenly to hold what he had always secretly wanted. 

He had looked at the Court of the Clouds and felt the painful, sharp panic that had always driven him to the sky; and he had looked at the people who had been handed over to him with his seat of power, shattered in the wake of their previous leader’s failure. 

That time, he had swallowed his panic and stayed. 

Now Charon stood at the window of his office, behind the large, dark desk that held his official seal of office. He wore his heavy robe of state, and the hands he linked thoughtfully behind his back were adorned with rich metal jewelry.

Charon had changed since he and Flea last met, in ways more fundamental than he understood. But it would be a lie to say that the man who contemplated Flea’s arrival was wholly different from the boy who had seen a small hand creep toward his mark’s pocket and had caused a distraction so a golden-haired thief could nab Charon’s intended prize unnoticed. 

The mechanical voice of Charon’s guest spoke from behind him. “You will do well to agree to my terms.” 

Charon’s hands twitched in his pockets, but he stayed gazing down upon his floating city in the clouds. “I thought this deal came from the Emperor.” 

“I am the Emperor’s trusted emissary. You will agree to these terms, _or_ … the Empire will show its disapproval.” 

Maybe if he could warn Flea, if he could cause a distraction and let xir get away… Maybe if he activated his alarm right now, maybe if he evacuated the city, maybe if he dove out of this window and got to Flea first, maybe maybe maybe… 

“Do not test me.” Vader’s voice came from much closer, and Charon had to fight not to jump.

Warm fingers wrapped around his throat. He jerked, but the heel of the palm was pressing against the nape of his neck and now the fingers were tightening, the tips digging into his skin. He twisted to get out of Vader’s grip but the hand held him fast, following him as if stuck to his flesh. 

He dropped a dagger out of his sleeve and slashed at the hand. The knife cut deep into his neck. Charon gagged and coughed. Warm blood spilled down his front, staining his fine clothes. 

The hand released him and Charon stumbled sideways. With each cough to clear his airway, another pump of blood oozed down his neck. He steadied himself on the wide window. He hand left an incomplete, bloody print. 

He looked up and flinched: Vader had a hand outstretched toward him, fingers curled as if to choke again. She was standing in the middle of the room, and her mechanical hand was not the living one that had choked Charon, but he knew that it was she who had done it. 

Vader lowered her hand slowly. “You want to warn your friend. You will not. You want to protect your city. That, you can do.” Vader paused and inclined her head slightly. “If you follow my instructions.”

 

D’Artagnan stormed into the clearing where the _Wren_ lay. Constance looked up as he stormed to where Ninon perched daintily on an exterior flap. 

“You knew,” he said. 

Constance abandoned her efforts to ignore d’Artagnan. She stood up and took a few paces toward him. 

“D’Artagnan?” she asked. 

He was still focused solely on Ninon. “You knew! And you!” He spun and yelled it at the trees. Constance could only guess that he was speaking to Porthos. “You knew this whole time! “Every time I asked you about my parents, every time you told me you were a farmer — everything was a lie!” He paused. “It’s not the same!” 

“D’Artagnan,” said Ninon. He spun to samm, fury in every bone. “It would have done you no good to know that she lived on another planet.” 

“No _good_?” d’Artagnan choked. 

Ninon cut him off. “You are powerful. Porthos knew to hide you was to ensure the galaxy’s future.” 

“By pretending you knew nothing of my past?” D’Artagnan paused, and turned to the trees again. Whatever it was that he heard, it made the blood drain from his face. 

“You — I have. I have a tw… You _knew_?” 

He stood and paced a short distance away. He stormed back to the tree line immediately. “All my life I thought I was wrong because no one felt like I did. I didn’t even have anyone to talk to. If I’d had a brother or a sister…” 

Constance caught her breath. Something had happened to the child d’Artagnan spoke of. Something so terrible that he had never known about them. 

What kind of secrets had the revered Musketeer Porthos been hiding for so long? 

D’Artagnan turned to the ship, deliberately looking past Ninon. “Flea, the _Wren_ is ready to go, isn’t it?” 

Flea nodded cautiously. “Sure, but don’t you want to…” 

“All I want to do is get away from here.” D’Artagnan stalked toward the ship. His hand lingered on the sabre at his belt, but in the end he kept it and boarded the ship. 

 

All things were made of stars. 

Stars were made of plants, and humans, and aliens and microbes. People would turn to stars; and in time, stars would turn to people. They were all made of the Force. 

Musketeers knew this better than any astrophysicist. They could feel the Force of the universe, and they knew that everything faded and reformed into something else. Sometimes, particularly talented Musketeers could hold their forms for just a while. For just a blink of the universe’s long yawning life. 

Porthos was particularly talented. 

D’Artagnan would be able to see them, soon, Ninon thought. Porthos would hold themself here until they were content to become a star. Or, knowing Porthos’ humor, they might redirect their Force into to a sand lizard or something equally as ridiculous. 

Until that time came, Ninon would satisfy sammself with the afterimage of Porthos at sarr elbow. 

“I’m worried about him,” Porthos said. It wasn’t a confession; Ninon already knew it. 

“He is uneasy,” Ninon agreed. “In his state.” Samm gestured to sarr heart. In sarr culture -- on a planet that had perished long before the Empire had been a twinkle in the Emperor’s eye -- everyone had understood the states of self and Force. Ninon had not had to teach a student for a hundred years, and d’Artagnan was not as receptive to Ninon’s vocabulary as sarr last student had been. 

“I’m afraid,” Porthos said. This was not a confession either. “I’m afraid that I’ve failed mother and son. I’m afraid that he’ll fall to the same manipulation that killed his mother, because I wasn’t--”

They stopped when Ninon swung sarr cane through their ghostly knees. “Feeling sorry for yourself,” samm sniffed. “He will not fall. And Milady is not dead.” Softly, samm added, “However I have wished for it to be so.”

 

The _Wren_ had barely exited the Dagobah system before an Imperial fighter was upon them. Constance’s eyes locked on the huge ship above the _Wren_. Something withered and cold was on that ship. Something that reached out like a horrible hand, even now, searching… 

… for her… ?

“Athos, kill the decadrive and turn the ship around!” Flea snarled. Xe was punching at the controls. 

Constance snapped her eyes away from the revolting sight of the Empire Destroyer. “You’re going to charge at them?” she cried, and she pushed past d’Artagnan to join Flea at the controls. 

They crossed the _Destroyer_ ’s hull, barely missing the blasts that came at them from the too-close cannons. Flea hooked the ship to the underside of the _Destroyer_ and killed the power. 

And then the four of them sat very, very still. 

Constance found herself holding her breath. The hand was still reaching, reaching... She closed her eyes and focused on not breathing. She was nothing. No one could find her here, she was nothing, no hand could take hold of her... 

After a good time without alarms going off or Imperial fighters coming at them, Constance let her breath out slowly. “What now?” she asked. 

Flea was scrolling through a complicated system of interstellar open-receiver messages. “I’ve got a buddy near here. He pinged me a bit ago, when we were sitting dark. We can lay low at his for a while.” 

“Does he have enough room for us?” 

Flea chuckled. “He’s got a whole city. Court of the Clouds.” 

 

A small party of burly-looking security came out to meet the _Wren_. At their center was a dark-skinned man wearing a cape of rich purple over a modest tunic and breeches of the lower class. 

Constance leaned closer to Flea. “Do you trust this Charon?"

"Trust him?” Flea muttered. “I grew up with him. Of course I don't trust him." 

Flea stepped forward with xir arms open wide and a cocky grin on xir face. “Buddy!” 

The caped man stopped before Flea and Constance. He looked them up and down. 

“So,” he said stonily. “The Queen returns.” 

Flea held xir hands up placatingly. “I’m not here to tussle with you, Charon.” 

Charon raised his chin and looked xir over. “That’d be a change.” 

“Look, we’re here on business.” 

Charon glanced at the _Wren_. “Official business?” 

Flea twitched xir hand in a complicated gesture. “Ehhh. More of the opposite, actually.” 

Charon drew himself up. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing since you cheated me out of a city-“ 

“Hey!” Flea protested. “That was a loss for both of us, don’t get it twisted—” 

“But I’m a businessman now, Flea,” Charon continued. “The Cloud Court is a verified trading partner with other Empire-approved settlements. I’m in charge of a city of people. I don’t get mixed up in the-opposite-of-official business.” 

He held Flea’s gaze. 

Xe tried a smile. “I’ll let you on my ship?” 

“ _Your_ ship! She was my ship first—“ 

“You wagered it; I won fair and square—“ 

Charon threw his head back and laughed. He held his arms open for an embrace. “It’s good to see you again, you old rascal.” 

 

D’Artagnan was quiet as their party was shown through the palace of the Court of the Clouds. The sight of the planet far below and the hovering islands in the sky distracted him briefly. When they passed into the palace and thick foggy glass obscured the view, d’Artagnan couldn’t stop his thoughts going back to what Ninon had shown him on Dagobah. 

He had pretty much always known that Porthos wasn’t from Tatooine, sure.  Learning that his ommer was really a Musketeer had been — well, cool. It’d been wicked and weird and _cool_. He’d been more upset about not being in on the secret than anything else. 

Seeing the woman who awaited him in that small hovel in the middle of the jungle — knowing instantly that Porthos had kept this from d’Artagnan carefully and deliberately — 

How long had he longed for a family? A real family like others had. A person who didn’t just have to take care of him, but someone who had wanted him. Someone who wanted more than to fold him into the smallest corner of the galaxy. 

Someone like the woman who lived, apparently, on a swampy planet with the last living Musketeer. 

(He had recognized his own nose in her face and he hadn't been able to look at her any longer. He had run out of there as if she were Vader herself.) 

D’Artagnan paused as the group passed a dim hallway. Something he was learning to recognize as the Force was moving down that hallway, beckoning him… 

He glanced at the others as they continued through the palace, and then he ducked into the side hallway. 

Hand on his sabre, d’Artagnan crept closer to the eddies of the Force that centered around a door at the end of the hallway. D’Artagnan pressed his back against the wall and turned his head to peek inside the room. 

He jerked back in a second. What were Red Guards doing in the Court of the Clouds? 

 

Charon tried to grapple with the bounty hunter who was striding down the hallway of Charon’s palace with his first and best friend in restraints. 

“Hey, hey!” he protested. “This wasn’t the deal. You never said anything about Flea.” 

“What deal?” Flea snarled at him, biting and cursing at the Guards as xe tried to free xirself. 

The bounty hunter shook Charon off. “Take it up with xir bosses. I’m just the middleman.” 

“I’m sure we can work something out.” Charon cursed his fancy shoes that slipped as he tried to keep up with the bounty hunter. “Listen, you can forget about this, can’t you? Surely I have something that’ll change your mind.” 

The bounty hunter kept going. “Nothing that will save my reputation after I let myself be bribed out of an easy job.” 

Charon bumped against Flea’s friend, Princess Constance, and muttered an apology. She glared back at him with righteous fury. 

“Look,” said Charon, hoping Flea could hear him, “the deal was just to hand over one guy and I’d be able to protect my city. They rely on me. What’s one guy to me?” 

“That guy is my friend,” she snapped. “And Flea is my—” Her eyes welled up with tears and then she looked away, as icily as if she wasn’t being herded down a corridor by armed Red Guards. 

Charon looked between Flea and Constance, and felt the last of his long-held hope wither away. Charon had made himself into a small-time mayor, and meanwhile Flea had found xirself a princess. 

 

D’Artagnan’s footsteps slapped and echoed through the empty, haunting hallways. He was making too much sound and he had never felt less like a Musketeer and _he didn’t care_.

Flea. Constance. Athos. 

It was a trap. 

He turned the corner and almost collided with Vader. 

He stumbled back. The black suit was hideous up close; an exoskeleton where one didn’t belong. He could see his distorted reflection in the shine. 

Vader drew her sabre from her belt. “D’Artagnan,” said the mechanical voice. “My master’s last pupil.” 

At the mention of Porthos, d’Artagnan’s blood unfroze. His hand found his sabre and drew it from its sheath, smoother than he’d ever drawn it before. 

His voice didn’t shake when he said, in an icy tone Constance would be proud of, “Vader.” 

 

Athos roared in wordless fury and rushed at the Guards. 

Flea jumped forward, struggling against the Guards’ hold on xir as xe put xirself between Athos and the bounty hunter. 

"Hey! Athos! This won't help me!" Athos glared at xir, one gleaming eye visible under his mop of hair. "Save it for another time," Flea hissed. "You've got to take care of the princess." 

Flea had been listening when Constance told her that she’d worked long and hard to become a princess. Xe had been listening when Constance bitched about politics, and when she fought for more dangerous assignments instead of diplomatic missions. 

Constance was vital to the Rebellion. 

Flea? Not so much.

Constance turned to Flea. She grabbed Flea’s arm, holding xir tight. There was dread in her eyes. Flea didn’t waste time on reassurances; just kissed her deep before they tore xir away. 

Constance took a step forward, but Athos held her back. "Flea," she cried. "I love you!" 

Flea didn’t smirk like xe had imagined xe would when Constance finally told xir what xe already knew. 

Constance with her hard, sharp rules. Princess Constance of all things. Infinitely understanding and demanding in equal measures, frustrating Flea beyond anything xe had ever known. 

Constance, who had rejected anything that didn’t fit her perfectly and demanded that everyone listen to her when she found the solution.

Constance who held back from Flea because she was falling too hard, like Flea wasn’t tearing xir hair out over the inexplicable need to be next to Constance for as long as Constance wanted, fuck Bonnaire and Flea’s job and xir reputation. 

Constance who was still staring at Flea with wide, scared eyes. 

Constance wasn’t waiting for an answer. Flea wouldn’t give one to her. 

"I know," xe said, and let the bounty hinters carry xir away. Xe kept xir eyes on Constance until xe couldn’t see her anymore.

 

"You must fight me with anger," Vader said.

“Don’t tell me how to fight,” d’Artagnan spat. He brought his lightsabre up and around, and Vader was parrying before he’d even finished the movement. Vader drove him back. The suit didn’t seem to hamper her movements at all. 

“You are predictable,” Vader said, a hint of amusement creeping into the modulated voice. “I know my old master’s techniques well.” 

D’Artagnan redoubled his efforts, striking back twice as quickly as before. He tried to remember all the tricks that Ninon had shown him. What use was levitating boulders and standing on his head now? 

Vader flicked a hand and a piece of metal broke off from the wall and came soaring at d’Artagnan. He rolled out of the way, his sabre nearly dropping from his hand. 

Vader descended upon him, her own sabre raised high. 

Ninon and Porthos had trained the hate and fear from his mind, but they could not kill his anger. He was so angry: at the press of his binder that hampered his panting breath even now; at the limited choices Tatooine gave him, at the circumstances that had chased him from his home 

(and people could be a home, but all of d'Artagnan's people were far away or gone from him now); 

at the Empire; at Porthos for dying; at Vader for killing. 

He came back at Vader with all the anger in his heart. His lightsaber flashed quicker than it ever had before. 

Vader fell. 

He stood panting in the ringing quiet of the hallway. The clatter and whine of machinery filled the air, but beyond that d’Artagnan could detect nothing, though he strained his ears. 

“I know you,” said Vader. 

D’Artagnan spun around, raising his sabre, but no one was there. 

“I know how you grew up on that desert wastelandof a planet,” said Vader; only the words were also images, the dry winds of Tatooine rasping against d’Artagnan’s skin. Vader was speaking inside his mind. 

“No resources, no acceptance of feeling strange in your body,” Vader continued. D’Artagnan felt his stomach curdle, a physical ache of shame as he realized that Vader could see his thoughts and realize what he was. He turned in a circle, tense with the need to physically attack the wraith who could infiltrate his mind. “Such anger and frustration inside of you. I know the rejection you’ve felt. I can help you turn it back on those who have denied you.” 

His sense of the Force was the only thing that saved him from the enormous machine hurtling through the air. He ducked, and it went over his head. 

Vader stood at the end of the hallway. She had found him again and now she struck back harder than before. She wielded the Force like a toy, sending all sorts of objects flying at d'Artagnan. 

D’Artagnan found himself backed up into the core cooling area. A short walkway with a long drop. He clutched at a supporting strut with one hand, praying he could hold on and still wield his sabre. 

“I know you, d’Artagnan,” said Vader. “I know your power. You can destroy the Emperor. He fears you. He will fear us both. Together, we can know ultimate power.” 

D’Artagnan barked out a laugh. “Together? I would never join you. You killed the only parent I ever had.” 

Vader clenched her fist and stepped forward. Her lightsabre rose to point at d’Artagnan’s chest. 

“I am the only parent you should have had,” she said. “You belong to me. You will join me, d’Artagnan, and we will wreak vengeance upon those who ever tried to steal us away.” 

D’Artagnan’s hand was slippery on the strut. “What are you saying?” 

Vader’s voice gentled under the mechanized hum. “I’m your mother, d’Artagnan.” 

As he stared in horror, Vader lifted a hand toward him. Palm up. “Join me,” she said. 

D'Artagnan let go. 

(It felt nothing like flying.) 

 

In the medical suite of a Rebel ship, Constance nodded at the screen of her holo-con. “Good luck, Charon.” 

Charon’s voice emitted from the screen. “When I find the bounty hunter who has Flea, I’ll contact you. I don’t know who Flea owes money to but I’m sure they won’t argue with a Musketeer, eh?” 

Constance glanced over at d’Artagnan. She attempted a smile for Charon. “I’m sure,” she agreed. “Safe travels.” 

“And to you, Princess.” 

Constance ended the call and joined d’Artagnan at the window that showed the lights of the Rebel docking site and, beyond, the fainter sparks of stars and planets. 

D’Artagnan wrapped an arm around Constance and stared out at the galaxy. The truth of his history sat heavy on his tongue and clogged his throat. 

He didn’t know how to say, _I thought I loved you and now I realize what Flea feels for you I've never felt in my life_ , and _I think I'm turning into my mother and it's more horrifying than you know_ , and _I think I must have a dark side in my future because I’ve never felt love as the stories talk about it and my mother fell because of love_. 

He swallowed this and turned to Constance. “We need to go somewhere,” he said. “I have someone to introduce to you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> naaaawwwwwt beta'd


	3. your soul outweighs my own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: transphobia, trans character forced to pass as cis, sexually-charged emotional abuse, mentions of sex work.

“I once said, ‘There is no such thing as a infant’, meaning, of course, that whenever one finds an infant one finds maternal care, and without maternal care there would be no infant.” D.W. Winnicott

  

   

Things operated differently, back then. It's hard for you younglings to understand what it was like before the Empire controlled everything. Groups jockeyed for position and snapped up charters that made them the owners of land and wealth. The Musketeers existed amongst this chaos, bringing order where they could.

In the end, humanity is what led to our downfall. Empire or no Empire, humans struggle to define themselves and struggle to understand each other. Despite the many strains of humanity that have spread throughout the galaxy, hubris and tragedy still live in every person’s heart. 

The Musketeers were as human -- as flawed -- as any other who could be blamed for the collapse of the Republic. 

Ostensibly, they were a force unto themselves. That’s what they believed. Musketeers lived by their slogans of family, loyalty, and justice. The Force was a power they could wield. It may have been, long ago, that some Musketeers had viewed the Force as a meditative guide, but contemporary Musketeers focused on the might of the Force. 

The Musketeers accepted missions from the Cardinal. There were checks and balances, of course -- the Cardinal listened to the Court, and each planet in the Court had its say…. But there were complications. The Cardinal was, as a human and a person, flawed. They favored certain relations or friends, or leaned toward helping planets that followed their own philosophy. Court members with skillful oration or who had the wealth to attend every Court meeting had the ear of the Cardinal more often. 

And then there were planets who declined to attend Court. Naboo was one of them, until a former Queen accepted a position as Senator after the Battle of Naboo. Until then, Naboo was open to protection from the Musketeers, but it had no political power. They were not yet embroiled in the maze of Court politics. 

Porthos cannot remember how exactly the Musketeers were sent to assist Naboo. The reasoning had seemed, if convoluted, understandable at the time. Some ally of a trading corporation was trying to illegally infringe upon Naboo’s individually operated rights, and Cardinal de’ Medici had connections in the Court who asked her to settle the matter so their own property rights wouldn’t be stolen, and….

(Like we said, d’Artagnan. Things were so much different then. Before the Empire decided when and how every citizen would breathe and spend their money, there were such fights over absolutely everything. We thought that such fights were the symbol of the freedom of expression and choice. We thought we were free.) 

* * *

 

Here is a truth: there is no such thing as a baby. 

An infant never exists on its own, not unborn and not from its first breath. A baby’s existence is a cumulation of the reaction of adults. It is expelled from its purgatory of fluid and nutrients, and it squalls its first cry into a world already waiting to impose judgment on its noise. A baby cannot continue its existence outside the womb without care: arms that are not its own, sustenance that it has not found, shelter that it has not built, language that it has not learned. 

Some babies are coddled, shushed, and cradled. Others are scooped up expertly and cleaned, their cries allowed until they are ready to be held. Some unfortunates - not the unfortunate  _ few _ , their existence made even more sad by their numbers - are judged, and found wanting, and left to wail and soil the hay upon which they had slid. They do this until they have been ignored long enough to learn the first and lasting impression in their lives: No one is going to come for them. 

One such unfortunate was born on an indeterminate day in an inconsequential year, on a generally nondescript pile of hay. She, like so many others, would later wonder about the specifics of her birth: what time of day it was, which stars were in the sky, and which bird was singing at the time of her first breath. These details seem vital to them later, but they are not so vital to the infant's story. The only truths that need knowing are: the baby's cries, the shouting behind the wall for someone to shut up the noise, the arms that refused to hold her. 

Babies do not exist, and by the same mathematics toddlers do not exist, nor children. So this unrecognized and unloved baby grew into a child without ever existing, in the unforgiving winds of Tatooine. 

When she was thirteen years old two things happened: she became a person, and she became Milady de Winter.

* * *

 

But that’s not how it all starts.

* * *

 

It all starts like this:

Porthos is no longer he. "He" was a sensation of panicked running, heart in their mouth as shouts chased him: "Stop that  _ branki _ " -- the local slang for a male dog. "He's a thief!" 

“He” was years of proving their worth as a boy, barely a man, puffing out their chest and taking on trickier jobs. Getting in tangles with other boys because the bravest and dumbest boy was always the one who made it as the king of the streets, and that was how you survived. "He" was an amalgamation of memories that barely existed anymore; a life that had stopped when they'd been lucky enough to find themselves in a lineup of potential Musketeers, and Captain Treville had pointed at them and said, "this One" - the formal word denoting a being, an essence, an extension of the Force and no individual gender. 

And it was "they" in the common tongue, too. Porthos chose that for a reason. Musketeers have to travel far, and often, for work. There was no need for Porthos to explain culture- and planet-specific pronouns; no need to hear alien tongues mash the foreign words. Porthos was a Musketeer, and the Force; and on every planet they were the same, in the same language. Porthos stood for honor and justice on every planet. 

Porthos flourished under Treville's tutelage. Now they could feel the Force around them, as part of them and they as part of it. Porthos thought of the Force as a "they" too; like a trillion stars that each held a million souls, and Porthos lit by their light. 

The Musketeers had accepted Porthos, and upon acceptance Porthos’ past had been erased. Nothing about their life on the streets mattered to the Council. It was only the hard work that Porthos put into their training that would deem them a Knight. 

Porthos was ten and two when they were scooped off their home planet by Treville. They stopped counting after some cycles. They could have calculated the years' differences on all the planets they visited, but it wasn't needful. They were a Musketeer. They basked in their power and strength, not their age or their past. 

The Porthos that goes to Naboo is a far cry from the weathered guardian who raised d'Artagnan.

* * *

 

This is how it starts:

The children of Naboo are encouraged to learn from a young age. All information is public. A queen has as much access to political matters, blaster techniques, and lock picking manuals as the poorest urchin. Anne is chosen as queen at age 15, after she has torn through all the books she can reach.

Children with access to so many resources are always finding new ways to describe themselves. Anne identifies as three different genders in her eighth year, and her friends try on another twenty-six. Some genders are in public use for years and others for days; some also describe a sport that the Nabooine enjoys, or the kind of tea they take when with family or with friends. (Both are important personality identifiers in Nabooine culture.) Some genders take prefixes from the languages of the swamp people, and there are intense discussions over who can use those pronouns. Some genders encompass all of space and some define the person as a Nabooine first and foremost. One queen invents a gender that refers to quinn job as part of quinn gender, and qui offers the pronouns to quinn successors. 

Anne has recently begun identifying as eir, which took the greater part of a week's intricate linking of astrology and battle plans and eir own hair color to eir identity. But Queen Amidala uses 'she' and 'hers,' interplanetary labels that most traveling aliens used, the better to be relatable to other politicians. And so Anne dons the costume of Queen Amidala, becoming someone with the pronouns and the face of a stranger.

* * *

 

And this, this is how it starts:

Sarazin strips Anakin naked and makes her watch one of his girls with a client. “If you want to be a girl, you’ll work for me like a girl,” he says. “If you want to spy for me, you’d better stay a boy.”

Ani shivers in the underground shade, watching the other girl forget to pretend she was having a good time. How had Sarazin known? She’d never said a word about being a girl; she’d thought she’d hidden herself as a boy so well. That was years before Milady discovered the holes in the walls, and cheap sensors and recorders under beds, so Sarazin could keep an eye on his underground empire.

Ani takes the deal.

It would be more years still before Ani realizes that Sarazin treated his girl- and boy-slaves the same, and that nothing had saved Ani from that harsh use except Sarazin's wish for a new spy. Ani would hate herself for falling for that trick, and hate herself for knowing that she would have chosen the same if she had known the truth. 

It was a choice that left her scarred. 

By the time the Musketeers found her, Milady was a tiny dark-haired ball of wary, sharp edges. She had a scar across her throat where some slaver had cut her when he'd found she was a spy for his competitor - at six years old. The garrison healers had to fix bones that had been broken and roughly set. Life was tough on Tatooine. 

Later, Anne would catch Milady practicing graceful hand motions and tilts of the head; things that foreign, well-bred ladies might do. Anne could never shake the feeling that Milady felt that she was pretending to be a girl; that someone had told her that she would never truly be a woman and Milady, stubborn as always, was determined to prove them wrong.

(Porthos never knew that.) 

(But Milady wasn’t about to tell her new Sarazin exactly how she could be broken, was she?)

* * *

 

Captain Emilie assigns them to the investigation and protection of the Nabooine political throne. She waves them off, somewhat ironically -- Captain Treville had asked her if she was really so heartless as to assign them to another planet only days after they had gotten back from Till’iek, and she shows up to see them off “just to make sure you actually leave, Jean.”

She even produces a blue cap and waves it at the ship as they take off, in the manner of Cantooi well-wishers. Porthos cracks up. Captain Treville hides a smile and pretends to be offended. 

They usually have more time to rest between assignments. Porthos had been looking forward to practicing and hopefully finally mastering the Sidewinder katas. Treville advises Porthos to practice their meditation to help with the inevitable space-lag that comes with visiting planets with different daily time systems. 

Treville is right, although Porthos refrains from telling him so. Treville was right on the previous mission, when Porthos interpreted the local language as Venutian-based and Treville bet on Venellian. Three misunderstandings later, when Porthos was hip-deep in a plasma pool and several native citizens were preparing a war shawl for their leader, Treville raised a single eyebrow at Porthos and held out his hand for their agreed-upon seven credits. Porthos is not going to give their master the satisfaction of being correct again so soon after the last instance. They can’t stand that infuriating eyebrow. 

Captain Treville is Porthos’ father, mentor, confidante, co-conspirator. Porthos learned their sabre flourishes from Treville. They still tease their master about the wrong turn Treville had taken on Bea-9 that had led them both into the sewer system, from which they had emerged, stinking and still worried about a large dragon-like creature they had glimpsed, only to come face-to-face with their startled quarry. They pick up tics from each other; Treville has of late been running his finger over his upper lip when he thinks, much as Porthos did when their facial hair was first growing in. They learn to move around each other in cramped quarters; they are content during time spent apart and they relish coming back together, when the gleam of anticipation for another battle shines in both pairs of eyes. Treville is not Porthos’ entire world, but he is the one who shaped it. 

The ship enters Naboo planetspace cautiously. Despite the official report the Council gave them, they want to take stock of the situation before they engage. It wouldn’t be the first time that a government entity tried to summon Musketeers under false pretenses in order to use the Musketeers’ fighting prowess for their own gain. So far the report seems accurate: no Naboo-coded ships are entering or exiting orbitsphere, while Tortugan ships are situated strategically within it. Treville sends a tentative message to the Tortugans, asking for treatise talks. 

Porthos enjoys the eyes on the pair of Musketeers as they both disembark from the ship. They are aware of the weight that their sword carries: not just what they could do with it, but what it means to others. The Tortugan ambassadors watch Porthos and Treville closely. Porthos wonders what their stories of the Musketeers are; whether they warn their younglings about the monsters who will cleave them in two, or are comforted by the presence of aliens in leather vambraces stamped with the iconic flower. 

The meeting begins well enough. Porthos has certainly been privy to more boring meetings. Really, they’re just there to hear the Tortugans’ arguments as to why they should keep a hold on their trading embargo. The Tortugans have an accent when they speak Common that sounds very similar to the Grantians on Neen-8-Go’r, where the local dialect had been called “Spanish.” Porthos makes a note to look up later whether the two planets may have been populated by a common ancestor. 

The trouble starts when the Tortugans break for their bathing ritual and a meal. Porthos and Treville are exchanging idle comments when Treville gives Porthos the equivalent of a nudge through the Force, and points to a cloud of gas escaping from the room’s air vent. 

Well, Porthos has their answer now. The Tortugans definitely don’t like the Musketeers. 

Fortunately the Tortugans have forgotten, in their haste to get rid of the Musketeers, that Musketeers are not only the galaxy enforcers of peace; they also have big glowing sabres that can cut through anything. The sabres are rather good at helping said Musketeers escaped locked rooms filled with knockout gas. Treville and Porthos don’t need to confer. Their most immediate task is to secure the whereabouts of Queen Amidala. They make their way through the palace, pressing themselves against the walls to avoid being seen. 

Years ago, as a young Squire, Porthos would have cut down every Tortugan they saw. They are still tense with preparation, ready to fight should they be seen. But dozens of missions have taught them what Treville’s morality lessons never could: wait and let them go. 

Captain Treville is fond of issuing warnings before he strikes, but Porthos lets their sabre do the talking for them. The people here need no warning of the consequences; they understood and accepted those when they began this attack on Naboo and invited the Musketeers onto the planet. 

(Treville thought compassion was a gift. Porthos was more practical: the warrior who chases every enemy is a tired warrior. Save your strength for the inevitable enemy ahead.) 

Porthos makes the acquaintance of Queen Amidala by tumbling out of a plasma shaft. It’s a tight fit, so they grunt and swear and finally squeeze out, and they look up and a small blonde alien is pointing a delicate laser pistol at their face. Behind the alien, there are four similar-looking aliens. Beyond them lie four Tortugans who had been left to guard the Queen and had been summarily knocked out by her handmaidens. 

(Porthos never told eir this, but their first impression of Anne reminded them of a tight-skinned dinosaur they had once seen on Jakkat, startled out of hiding and trembling, its hollow bones almost lifting it into the air as gusts of volcanic wind pushed against its wings. It had stared them down with wide eyes. The bones spurs of its wings leaked poison, sappy and yellow.) 

Porthos turns to the Queen, who is not Anne at this time, and says, “Queen Amidala, I presume? The Musketeers got your distress call.” 

(Porthos doesn’t bow. This is something Anne notices and remembers.) 

(Porthos had made a point not to bow to anyone since they had become a Musketeer.  _ Musketeer _ meant no masters.) 

The Queen nods. She doesn’t even flick an eyelash toward Anne. Her face is decorated with swirls of blue paint, which continues down her arms in ancient runes. Her hair is a wig done up in enormous coils around the sides of her head. Porthos doesn’t know it yet, but she and the other four light-haired people in the room are all within four kilgraphs of each other’s weight and height. 

The one in the Queen’s clothing motions to her retinue. They have all been trained to follow the Queen’s orders, no matter who occupies the costume. They have all attended political meetings and visited disaster sites dressed in the Queen’s thick face paint and headdress. They have all borne the impersonal hate of opponents. They have all held infants in their arms and blessed survivors in religious ceremonies. They all work for the people of Naboo. In this aspect, they are all Amidala. 

On their way out of the room, Porthos feels for Captain Treville and finds him turned inward, two floors up and a klick toward the southern moon. Treville is poring over the Tortugans’ command center. A Tortugan struggles against their bonds in the corner. 

Porthos crouches down and looks the Tortugan in the eye. They grin and watch the Tortugan’s snout shrivel in trepidation. “Now. It’s time to ask some questions.” 

“Porthos, try not to damage them this time,” says Treville without looking up. 

Porthos grins. “No promises.” They haul the Tortugan up by their robes and bring them close to Porthos’ face. “You see, I’ve made some new friends. And I don’t like the way you’ve been treating them.” 

“You remember the expense reports for the last one you interrogated,” says Treville. 

The Tortugan looks between the two Musketeers - one gleefully fierce, the other indifferent - and grunts in alarm. 

Long story short, Porthos gets everything they need from the Tortugan. 

(It doesn’t matter how. Quiet, d’Artagnan.) 

The Tortugans, while a tremendous military force, are not the masterminds behind this attack. Treville and Porthos establish most of a plan with a single glance. 

“You stay here with the Queen,” says Treville. 

Porthos frowns and says, “Split up our force?” But they feel the truth through the Force as well as Treville does. The Tortugans on-planet are merely the remains of a shoddily-planned attack on Naboo. The true power behind this assault lies far away. Captain Treville knows this, and he knows that Porthos knows it. He looks at Porthos significantly. Porthos sighs inwardly; they have given Treville another reason to be smug when his words are inevitably proven true. 

And so Porthos is shoring up Naboo’s defenses when the Musketeer ship departs from the planet’s docking station. 

The next time they see him, there is a dark-eyed young creature peering over his shoulder. Those dark eyes hold the most incredibly fragile hope that Porthos has ever seen.

* * *

 

The women of Tatooine are dark and hard and unsmiling. It makes no difference if a woman’s skin was white or brown when she was born born; within years, the double suns and the grime of living in a desert darkens everyone’s skin to, at least, a tough desert-brown. Only women born with darker skin may have the benefit of transitioning more naturally into a smooth complexion.

Even Ani, whose moons-pale wrists and belly betray her family history as one of the planet’s long-ago imported goods, since integrated and as native to Tatooine as any other race, has cheeks and legs as sun-baked as the swarthiest moisture farmer. There was no place for beauty regimens on Tatooine; whatever lotion could seep through the cracks of hardened skin would only dry out in minutes. 

The women find other ways to distinguish themselves. Good housewives wear certain head coverings; they never go to market at certain hours; they trade with certain businesses and follow certain rules about socializing. They hold their family in close confidence, and woe betide you if you don’t have a family to call upon on certain days, at certain times, according to the social calendar. 

Bad women don’t have families. They don’t have the luxury to stay away from the market when it is impolite to do business. Bad women don’t wear head coverings -- whether the reason was poverty, or manual labor, or simply respectable women tearing the cloth off their heads. Bad women are slaves, and sleep in the markets, and steal. Bad women are little boys pretending to be girls. 

Everyone knows that Ani isn’t a good person. 

Ani doesn’t pretend to be a girl anymore. Sarazin told him what would happen if he did. And at this point, Ani knows that Sarazin could see him anywhere he went on Tatooine. But he delights in confusing strangers: is he a boy or girl? Is that long hair a symbol of a decadence-slave or of womanhood? Are his clothes simply hoarded from the refuse of others’ wardrobes, or had he carefully selected each article to hint at his inner girlishness? 

(Every time they settle on the final decision that Ani is a boy, he delights in the disdain he can safely throw at them from inside his mind. Every time they decide he is a girl, he is paralyzed with fear.) 

Most know him as Sarazin’s messenger. Some know him as Sarazin’s spy. Both are true. 

The offworlder who comes to Sarazin’s shop in the midday heat doesn’t know Ani from a womp rat. 

Treville thought she was an anomaly at first: some kind of alien creature or an ancient and long-bubbling tar pit, a pool of Force pressure that had settled in one spot over many years. The galaxy was full of strange and wonderful things, Treville used to say. 

He knew it wasn't a Musketeer, because a Musketeer would have learned to keep those eddies of Force-will surrounding the anomaly in tight around them. But he didn't expect to follow the force signature into a mechanic's shop and find a small dark-haired child sitting on the counter and swinging their legs.

(“He was like those old stories of knights,” she tells Porthos once, much later. “He filled the whole doorway. Bristling with weapons. And he just looked at me and… I knew he was there for me.”) 

“This  _ is _ Sarazin’s shop?” asks Treville, in a tone as if Ani had already refuted it once and he was giving Ani one more chance to tell the truth. 

Ani shrugs an affirmative. He -- she -- at this point,  _ he _ \-- is tinkering with some discarded transporter parts. Thinking of making a pulley hammock for his den. 

(She must think of herself as he, must become the thing that Sarazin wants, for if Ani has learned anything in thirteen years of spying it is that every lie must be believed by the liar in order to be accepted by others. He, him, his. Ani. Ani. Ani.

Ani doesn’t have dreams of being a girl. Ani stares at women because he is attracted to them, not because he is mesmerized by their forms and wants to know how they bend and walk so gracefully. Ani is a good spy and dreams only of winning. Ani does not want to leave Tatooine behind forever. Ani would never betray Sarazin.) 

“Sarazin,” says Treville. “Is he your father?” 

“No,” Ani says instantly. This stranger really must be an offworlder if he doesn’t know Sarazin. Anyone smart enough to keep their head out of the sun knew that Sarazin’s junk shop was only a front for his underground brothel. 

Treville looks at her. (Looks at Milady, somehow. Not Ani.) “Where are your parents?” 

Ani looks away. The cutlass at his side worries Anni less than his stare. Ani shrugs again. “Never knew ‘em.” 

(Milady sticks to this story throughout her life. Only once, in the middle of the darkest night, does she tell Anne that Ani remembered her mother, or remembered the ghostly echo of a gaunt face that hovered above her. A child never forgot their mother, especially when the woman died and abandoned Ani to the unkind desert.) 

“Who takes care of you?” asks Treville. 

“Why are you looking for Sarazin?” Ani counters. 

Treville regards her for a long moment. He looks around the shop and takes in the discarded motors, the bent wings, the dirty hands of Ani buried in a dirtier transporter engine. Ani takes him in as well: the uniform, the symbol on his shoulder, the sabre at his waist. 

Treville tells her the truth. (Milady always wonders what made him trust her in that moment.) “Sarazin is paying Tortugans to disrupt a trading route. In his haste to gain wealth, Sarazin is killing innocents.” 

Ani doesn’t care as much about the innocents as he cares about this warrior man’s tone when he speaks about Sarazin. His voice remains steady, but there’s something flickering in his eyes that speaks to a subdued rage.

Ani says, “I didn’t think the Musketeers were real.” 

“They are. I am.” Treville’s hand closes, perhaps unconsciously, upon the lightsabre at his side. “And I promise you, no harm will come to you while I am here.” 

(Ani doesn’t go with Treville for the noble cause. Ani goes because finally someone stronger than Sarazin is showing interest in her.) 

Ani stands up. “I know where he is.”

* * *

 

The Amidala entourage and Porthos all know the Tortugans’ preferred method of attack. The next barrage against the planet would be the strongest yet.

“The capitol has auto-generated defense systems,” one of the handmaidens tells Porthos as she tucks small capsules of shock grenades under her official robes. Porthos thinks her name is Lucie. Porthos is almost able to tell the handmaidens apart with certainty. “We can allow a retreat to the secondary palace.” 

“Allies?” Porthos stands like a mountain planted in the middle the moving forest of Amidalas. Two handmaidens finish wrapping the Queen in a sturdy robe designed for travelling; another reveals a hidden door and retrieves a set of communicators. She hands one to Porthos. 

“The Queen has a contact among the Gungans,” says another handmaiden. (It’s Anne. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear shyly, and Porthos understands some of the nature of the Queen’s relationship with the Gungan contact.) “We will appeal to their good natures.” 

Marguerite says something that Porthos can’t translate; a few of the other women snort. “‘Defence and honor’,” she tells Porthos. “The Gungans’ motto.” A wry smile flickered along her lips and didn’t meet her eyes. “If good natures are not enough, we might appeal to their warring natures.” 

* * *

 

Milady never fully discloses the exchange between Sarazin and Captain Treville. She has survived by understanding what others want so much that they will sacrifice for it. The dialogue of dark-market deals is a language she cannot fully translate to Anne or Porthos. 

The gist of it, as far as Porthos ever understood, was that Sarazin graciously welcomed a powerful Musketeer into his dealing den. Equally as graciously he denied any involvement with the Tortugans, besides maybe once or twice commenting to some friends, who  _ happened _ to be Tortugans, that an alliance between Tatooine and the Tortugans would bring profit for them both. Sarazin would never suggest that they attack a defenseless planet, even if Naboo  _ did _ hold the major trade treaties in the planetary zone. 

Of course -- and Sarazin could only guess here, but of course Tortugans always attacked in predictable patterns. Sets of three barrages. And if what Captain Treville was saying was true (which it must be, of course, as Sarazin trusted his word completely), then the final and strongest attack would land on Naboo soon. Sadly, there was nothing Sarazin could do to stop his misguided friends from launching the attack. 

Captain Treville listens to this without a flicker of change on his face. At the last comment from Sarazin, Treville’s jaw clenches. It may be anger, or it may be a tic. Ani could read Treville as little as she could ever read anyone. 

But Ani understood that when Captain Treville told Sarazin to stay away from the Tortugans, he was at once delivering a polite political warning and a threat with force behind it. And Ani knew, when Sarazin pretended to think about it, that Sarazin had begun to drop every tie with the Tortugans on the moment that Captain Treville had entered Sarazin’s den. 

And so Ani understood the power of the Musketeers, that even the presence of a single warrior could stop Sarazin in his tracks. 

When Treville turns to go, Sarazin’s furious gaze falls on Ani. She meets his gaze, straightens her back, and follows Musketeer Treville out into the harsh sunlight. 

* * *

 

The Queen’s Gungan contact meets them at the secondary palace. They find him standing next to the throne in a miniature version of the throne room they recently abandoned to the Tortugans’ mercy. He sees the Queen and falls into an elegant bow, one webbed hand over his heart. His features are largely comparable to the Nabooine, with the exception of his eyes, which are larger and somehow more liquid; and his ears, which are so small as to be nearly hidden in his curly hair. 

(Porthos is struck, later, by this eager piety. Aramis seems to dance an inch above the ground, airy and careless. But here, in this throne room, he is grounded and his eyes are deep as they look toward the Queen. Only in this first moment that they meet does Porthos ever see Aramis so willingly bound to anything besides himself.) 

The Gungan’s promise to help them isn’t quite as speedily echoed by his government. Porthos endures a hideous journey through a shoddily-constructed underwater tube that doesn’t prevent enormous fish from trying to eat passengers. At least two handmaidens seem ready to launch a grenade at the animal, but Aramis manages to convince the fish to swim away. 

And Aramis manages to convince his elders to help protect the planet against the Tortugans’ attack. 

And Aramis also, somehow, convinces the Queen to stay in his underwater abode while the rest of the handmaidens, and Porthos, squeeze into a cave set aside for guests. 

(Gungans are very persuasive, via speech patterns that are very… flirtatious. Porthos never quite becomes accustomed to Aramis encouraging plants, animals, aliens, and his own Gungan kind to agree with him with the use of batted eyelashes and a curious stance that seems to emphasize his chest.) 

The Queen who returns to the cave the next morning is not the Queen who had left the night before. 

Instead of tensing as they once might have, Porthos opens their senses. They explore the posture of the Queen and the direction of her gaze; they reach into the Force and let themself be guided to the Force Life they felt yesterday when they were with the Queen in the palace -- the Force Life that currently inhabits a handmaiden who is demurely serving rations to her fellows. 

The glances that Aramis and the Queen exchange that day are more affectionate than they were yesterday. A product of a night spent alone, perhaps, or the result of Aramis’ true lover inhabiting the Queen’s makeup and headdress. 

Marguerite -- Porthos is almost positive that the handmaiden who approaches them is Marguerite -- notices Porthos watching the Queen. 

“I thought Musketeers weren’t allowed to indulge in love affairs,” she says to them, voice low, as their party approaches the surface of the underwater city. “Your eye seems fixed on Queen Amidala.” 

Porthos raises an eyebrow. “What else do they say about Musketeers?” 

“That they are monstrous warriors, able to quell the largest army with no weapon.” Marguerite is looking out into the water, perhaps searching for incoming fish. “That they are the stars given solid form.” 

“Well,” says Porthos, “only one of those things is true.” She looks at them sidelong. They wink. “We’re all part carbon from exploded stars, aren’t we?” 

Marguerite’s eyes narrow as she ignores this quip. “If you have romantic designs on the queen, she--” 

“Eir,” Porthos interrupts. “Anne told me ei prefers the pronoun eir, not she.” 

Marguerite stiffens. Porthos notices her hand creep toward the daggers they know she has stashed under her formal robes. “Anne is -- that is true, but Anne is a handmaiden. Queen Amidala uses universal signifiers.” 

Porthos shrugs. “My mistake.” They hold Marguerite’s gaze, but look away before their intense stare could be seen as a challenge. “The love affairs of my charges are not mine to consider or interfere with. The Queen and Anne may do whatever they choose. I’m just here to keep them both alive.” 

Marguerite swallows and nods. There is something of Queen Amidala’s stance in her chin. “I will protect the Queen and her secrets with my life.” 

(Porthos curses themself later for taking this as a promise and not a threat.) 

“As will I,” Porthos says. 

* * *

 

“They’ll be after us in a moment,” says Ani, leading Treville through a maze of sun-stained mud caverns. Residents poke their heads out of holes that constitute windows, withdrawing when they see who passes. Ani’s bare feet are sure and soft on the slippery sand. Her unfastened outer robes don’t catch on the rock faces as she slides past them with a hair’s breadth of space to spare. “He’ll be furious. Leading a Musketeer into his stronghold is beyond betrayal.” 

Treville is slightly astounded that he has to use his Musketeer training to keep up with this slip of a desert creature. “You helped me anyway.” 

“Sarazin is worth it.” 

Ani disappears from sight. Treville actually has to use his Force sense to follow her through a twisted entrance to a cool, unlit cave. Within, Ani is ransacking what looks to be a small hovel. She shoves a few trinkets from places of honor -- above the makeshift rag bed, by the door -- into a bag, closes it tightly, and slings it across her body. She tugs a hood on her robes up over her head so her face is only a dark patch among darkness. “Let’s go.” 

“Where?” Treville is already following her, through another invisible crack in the rock and down a dark strip of a hallway. His hand can’t rest on his lightsabre in this tight space, but he’s ready to call it to him. The Force is practically spinning around him in its urgency. 

“You came here on a ship, didn’t you?” 

“And you think you’re going to leave on it.” Treville doesn’t have time to argue before he emerges into blinding starlight. Tatooine’s first moon has risen, and the second sun’s light glares off of it. The desert is lit up like an engine core. 

Ani is waiting impatiently for Treville’s eyes to adjust. “Unless you’re going to leave me to be tortured and killed.” She takes Treville’s wrist. “Quickly.” 

A suncannon blast takes out a stone pillar near them. Treville has his arm up to protect them both in an instant. Shards of rock that might have sliced their eyes slow and fall to the sand. 

Ani swears, loudly, and tugs Treville behind an outcropping. “I told you! I’m marked for death on this planet.” 

Treville flips his sabre into his hand and activates it. “You’d think he’d be grateful!” he says over the loud sound of the caves crumbling. “You saved him from business failure and the intervention of the Senate.” 

“He doesn’t care about that when he’s feeling the loss of his money!” Ani dodges from one protective stone to the next. “You can’t leave me here.” 

“Who takes care of you?” Treville asks Ani again. He’s counting the moments between cannon shots, but his eyes are on her. 

Ani’s chin lifts. “I take care of myself.” 

“And Sarazin is…” 

“My master.” 

Treville does not flinch, as Porthos later would. “You are a slave.” 

Ani’s shoulder straighten and pull back. “I’m a person. And a--” 

Abruptly, Treville pushes her down. Ani resists, throwing her weight against him, trying to twist away. A frantic, primal whine builds in her throat. Treville bears her down to the ground. A tall rock formation that Treville can’t quite see explodes and rains shards on them as they narrowly avoid the suncannon shot that had been aimed at Ani.

“I didn’t mean to alarm you,” says Treville. In his right hand he already holds aloft his sabre. It is a broad rippling beam of light. As he crouches over Ani he deflects three more shots that are aimed their way. His eyes are still adjusting; he’s looking just over Ani’s shoulder. 

Ani stares up at him: a Musketeer in leathers and emblems, his shadow falling over a worthless desert orphan, one hand braced on the sand underneath her and the other holding a flaming sword to shield her from her attackers. 

Ani had endured for twelve years. She had bent to Sarazin’s wishes; she had bartered her body and her soul and her most precious possessions for places to sleep. She had recovered from horrors by leaping into the next danger. She had endured, and endured. She was a child of the unceasing desert. 

Every moment has been devoted to considering the present. Never before has she had a thought this clear:  _ This is what I want to be. _

_ “And a girl,” _ is what she had been about to say. Instead she says, “I’m a person. And a Musketeer.” 

* * *

 

The Tortugans return to Naboo before Captain Treville does. Their ships fill the northern sky like stormclouds. 

Porthos is far from inexperienced, but they miss Treville’s presence by their side. Treville has an unshakeable calmness about him, even -- especially -- in times of battle, when Porthos’ blood runs hot. 

But Porthos has studied enough battle strategy, and been on enough assignments that have ended in bloodshed, to be sure of what to do. 

“Our numbers are large enough for a frontal attack,” they say to the Queen and her advisors. 

“I respectfully disagree,” said Mathilde, a handmaiden whose coarse blonde hair hangs in a sheet down her back. “Our numbers are less than the Tortugans. A full-faced attack would spend us fruitlessly.” 

“The Gungans have their plasma cannons,” Marguerite points out. “Those are powerful enough to disable a large portion of the Tortugan troops.” 

“Frontal attack with machinery?” Porthos suggests. 

“Using the cannons to open parry would be the only way to effectively catch the Tortugans by surprise,” says Lucie. 

Anne’s face is poised and unmoving under the makeup of Queen Amidala; nothing shows on eir face, neither consideration nor rejection. Ei listens without responding to eir handmaidens’ suggestions. Finally the Queen raises a hand, and the conversation stops. 

“We will attack at midday.” 

* * *

 

The Musketeer ship enters Naboo planetspace about a parsec behind the Tortugans warships. 

Ani has opened up since they left Tatooine; her chatter is a spring of fresh water finally freed from its dam. She is thirteen, in all of its awkward and unsure excitement. She runs to the viewing window when the ship comes within sight of Naboo. She hovers a breath away from the glass, fearful to mar it with her handprints. 

Naboo is the bluest thing she has ever seen. 

“What’s that?” she asks. 

Captain Treville looks over her shoulder and tries to see what she does. “The clouds? They’re white from below, but in atmosphere they seem purple, don’t they?” 

She shakes her head. “The blue. What’s the blue?” 

“Lakes,” says Treville, catching and modifying his surprised tone. “Oceans. Rivers. Water, Ani.” 

Ani’s chapped lips part in dumbfounded astonishment. 

(A lifetime of discerning the differences of shades of brown, and now this…. this is almost too much.) 

“And those?” she asks. 

Treville, too, looks at the dominating forms of the Tortugan warships over Naboo. “Those are danger,” he says. He crouches down -- she is a tall child, but just small enough for Treville to kneel to catch her eyes. “I brought you to keep you safe, not to introduce you to new danger.” 

“I want to be a Musketeer,” she says stubbornly. 

“If the Council agrees, you may be a Musketeer. But not for this. You must stay where I put you, understand?” 

Ani lowers her eyes. She doesn’t agree. She hasn’t been a slave this long without knowing how to make her master think her obedient. Sarazin was rarely fooled, but he never put such attention to Ani’s actions as Treville does now. 

(She may be free from Tatooine, but she doesn’t mean to put herself in control of another human ever again. Even to be a Musketeer.) 

A loud boom, echoing strangely through the thin air of the atmosphere, interrupts Treville’s admonishment. Treville pushes himself up and crosses, not to the window, but to an array of weapons laid out on a table. “Our attack has begun.” He begins sliding small knives into sheathes under his armor and protective robes. 

“Those are the Musketeers?” 

“Only one Musketeer is planetside,” Treville corrects her. “My apprentice, Porthos, is assisting the native Nabooine.” 

Another boom startles Ani. She turns to the viewing window in time to see a purple cloud torn into shreds, and a Tortugan ship shake slightly with the resonant vibrations. 

Ani stares at the approaching planet until they are sinking past the warships, lowering to the surface of the planet. Then she tears herself away from Naboo and straightens, turning to Treville. She meets his eyes. “I no longer wish to be named Ani,” she says. 

(She would cringe about this, when she was older. Once she would tell Porthos about it, on one of the few occasions they could talk about Captain Treville. “I was such a self-important child,” she would say, covering her face with the hand that wasn’t covered in Gorlap guts. “I thought I was a terribly smart negotiator. I stuck my chest out and said,” she would affect a pompous tone, “‘I no longer wish to be called Ani. I am now named Milady de Winter.’ I had the name all picked out. I couldn’t wait to try it on someone.”

“Yeah, you were kind of a brat,” Porthos would say. Milady would shove them off the rock they both perched on, this time with the hand covered in guts.) 

Captain Treville, kind man that he is, only nods. His smile is a minute crinkle around his eyes. Milady trusts it more than any wide grin Sarazin ever gave her. 

* * *

 

Porthos is able to see Captain Treville’s ship as it lands in a protective cradle of forest. They stand at the window of a fortified hideout elevated above the plains on all sides. 

Anne steps up beside Porthos. Anne is eirself again, the queenly persona shed. Ostensibly Queen Amidala is behind closed and protected doors, but Porthos thinks all the handmaidens are present. If the Queen perishes today, perhaps some other blonde woman will take her place. 

“I never thought it would come to this,” Anne says softly. 

In Porthos’ experience, few ever do. They remember a small battle over land rights that had erupted into an all-out war on a planet smaller than Naboo; of the survivors who tore each other to pieces in peace talks. They think of the moon that rose the next morning, unaware of its nearly emptied planet. 

There is nothing they can say that will reassure Anne. Every piece of hope Porthos has seen has come at a great cost: death, estrangement, betrayal, heartbreak. They hold the rising moon in their heart, but they could not explain why to Anne unless they first spoke of slaughter. 

Anne is thinking of eir lover Aramis: his liquid brown eyes, the way he cradles her neck when he kisses er. Ei is thinking of the way he murmurs “my Queen,” into eir hair. Anne is thinking of hours spent in front of a mirror, learning to keep eir face still as eir friends read horrific accounts of atrocities on other planets. Anne is thinking of the familiar, slow pressure of a brush with the blue paint as it decorates eir arms and face; the chalky smell of the white paint; the weight of the headdress on eir temple. 

Anne is recalling the bushels of carvitt the farmers of Naboo have reported to the Queen this quarter; the populations of native Kaluc herders and where they may be in their seasonal travels; the employment rates of constructionists; the rash of sickness that had broken out in a northern town weeks prior; the planetwide set of instructions on electing a new Queen. 

If there is no Anne, there may yet be a Queen Amidala; if not Amidala, then another Queen. Anne believes in the strength of eir people in the face of opposition. Naboo is small, but mighty. Their traditions are seeped into the very planet, the water and rock underneath and the sky above. If the Tortugans defeat every attack and conquer the planet, Naboo will prevail. 

This is something ei knows: the future will continue without eir. 

Porthos’ broad, warm hand rests on eir shoulder. “We’ll give them more than they bargained for, eh?” they say. 

Anne looks up. Ei means to fake a smile, but upon meeting Porthos’ fierce gaze eir smile turns real and sharp. 

* * *

 

(Anne was Porthos’ friend first. This might have been the root of the enmity that would eventually grow between Porthos and Milady. But Milady was Porthos’ friend long before she was ever their enemy. Porthos still remembers the small upturned face trying to hide its awe and surprise, as the winds of a landing ship whipped their traveling cloaks around them and scattered sunlight upon their face. That was how they strove to remember Milady years later, when the winds of Tatooine were drying their skin and an infant was bawling for its mother.)

* * *

 

Treville brings Milady with him to the secondary palace, as per Porthos’ instructions. Their way is relatively easy to navigate. Although the Gungan cannons are destructive, and the Tortugans mean to parry with every weapon they have, the fighting is concentrated on the wide plains to the south of the palace. Milady is not too shaken when they reach the Queen’s fighting force; on the contrary, she is looking around with curiosity and delight. 

“Porthos,” says Captain Treville. He clasps arms with his apprentice. 

Porthos begins reporting without being asked. They pause when they see Milady over Treville’s shoulder. She snaps her teeth together when she sees Porthos. (Porthos realizes later that this is the Tatooine version of a nervous fidget.) 

“Oh, no,” says Porthos. “Don’t tell me you’ve adopted another foundling.” They grin and approach Milady. They bow. “Apprentice Obi-Wan Porthobi. Porthos, to my friends.” 

“Am I your friend?” Milady is genuinely confused. 

“You seem to be my master’s, so you must be mine.” 

( _ My Master _ . Milady looks past Porthos, at her savior, and reframes her rescue. She has given herself to a new owner without even bargaining for a contract.) 

* * *

 

The Nabooines are fighting a guerilla war. The Tortugans arrived with guns, and ships, and a plan of attack. The native forces of Naboo are forced to retreat whenever possible. 

“Don’t worry about the amount of ground won or lost,” Lucie tells the Musketeers during a lull. She is methodically re-adjusting the levels of empty charge blasters and priming them for another fight. “Our only objective is to eradicate invaders.” 

“As long as we stand, we still have Naboo,” agrees Anne. 

Treville comments mildly, “Tortugans don’t thrive well underwater.” 

Marguerite flashes her teeth in a grin. “Exactly.” 

“Naboo has been attacked before,” says Mathilde. “Our people took refuge under the waves. Some of them decided to stay there even when we won the planet back. We could do it again.” 

“Speaking of our aquatic friends,” drawls Porthos from their lookout spot, “I think they’re in position.” 

A wave coasts to shore, just east of the plain on which the Tortugans are assembled. Naboo is largely water, and the plain does not as much meet the sea as it becomes marsh. The reeds of the marsh wave in rhythm with the sea. Now they are still; now they sway; now they are  _ pushed _ toward land with an unnatural strength. Porthos feels the Force gathering behind every push of the waves. Some power is building in that water; something is waiting to be unleashed. 

Captain Treville bends to murmur in Milady’s ear, “Can you feel the cannons?” Milady shakes her head; she can feel no vibrations through the ground. “Not with your body. The Force is in every living thing. It’s in the waves. I can hear them.” 

Treville turns to Milady and holds out his hand, palm up. “Can you feel my heartbeat?” He guides her hand to the pulse in his ring finger. “That’s my sound. The waves have their own sound, their own heartbeat. They sound the same no matter the weather. Right now, their sound is overlapped. It’s like a lot of heartbeats all mixing with each other.” 

Milady frowns. She still can’t feel the heartbeat of the ocean. Now something is vibrating the ground, fuzzing the soles of her feet, but she can’t reach what Captain Treville is talking about. 

“Calm your mind,” says Treville. “Open your senses.” 

Milady closes her eyes and tries to follow these vague instructions. She tilts her chin up, trying to imagine reaching out, touching the pulse of the ocean -- 

Something  _ booms _ in her mind. She startles, nearly falling over. 

Porthos catches her, clapping her on the back as they steady her. “You felt that, then?” 

Milady would scowl in response to their teasing grin, but she is running to an outlook in their makeshift shelter. She hauls herself up just in time to see an enormous wave hang suspended for a moment as a tower of water. 

The force with which it descends shakes the breath from Milady’s chest. 

The wave completely passes over the marshes and collapses upon the land, covering the plain. Tortugans disappear under the nearly solid mass of water. The ones who try to outrun the wave are covered before they make a few strides. The water keeps coming and coming, not slowing down at all. Milady has never seen a fifth as much water in her life, and in a moment she is frightened she will drown in it. 

“It’s all right,” says one of the handmaidens. Anne is standing by the outlook with Milady; ei smiles reassuringly. “This shelter will withstand the water.” 

Sure enough, the water has thinned to be only as tall as Milady by the time it reaches them. The wave splits neatly before the hideout, and pours itself around the building. Anne is watching the water with a satisfied smile. Milady somehow feels that the water has politely obeyed Anne. 

Porthos joins Anne and Milady at the outlook. “So. That’s a third of the Tortugans taken care of. What about the rest?” 

“We cannot rely on the Gungan cannons on the northern plain,” says Anne pensively. “If we concentrate our--” 

The distinct sound of a spaceship entering the atmosphere cuts through eir words. Porthos squints at the sky, sighs, and then turns accusingly to Treville, who looks only too innocent. 

“That’s right,” Treville says. “Did I forget to mention that I called in reinforcements?” 

* * *

 

“I don’t want to go!” Milady doesn’t plant her feet, but only because she’s not a baby. “I can help. I felt the Force back there. I can fight!” 

“You’re a child,” says Porthos. “More importantly, you’re not trained to fight like a Musketeer. You’ll be a liability.” Porthos enters a code in the Musketeer ship corridor, and a door open. “Come on. You’ll be safe in here.” 

“Do you do everything Treville tells you to?” she demands. 

“If I did, I’d surely be dead,” Porthos says drily. “Come on. There’s a bunk in here, and some food stores. You can help yourself to whatever you want. Just leave some torke squares for Captain Treville, he loves those.” 

Milady watches them through narrowed eyes. “How do you defy him?” 

“I, uh, take his torke squares. How d’you mean?” 

“He’s your master but you don’t do everything he orders you to. What does he let you get away with?” 

Understanding comes to Porthos in a terrible flash. 

“I’m not beholden to him,” they say roughly, choked by their realization of what Milady means. “Captain Treville is my teacher, a master of his craft. There are no servants in the Musketeers.” 

Milady looks impatient, like Porthos is wasting her time. “Servants, yes, but what about slaves?” 

Porthos flinches. “Is that what you are?” 

Milady raises her chin and lies badly for the first time in her life. “No.” 

“Slavery isn’t lawful,” Porthos persists. “If you were enslaved, the Musketeers have reason to find the person who held you captive.” 

Milady tosses her hair. “I’m a Musketeer. Captain Treville says so.” 

“Yeah,” says Porthos. “We’ll see.” 

* * *

 

(Maybe, if Captain Treville had for once trusted Porthos with the truth, Porthos would have understood the circumstances from which Milady was dragged. Maybe, if Treville had told Porthos that Milady had been a prisoner in many ways, Porthos would not have held onto their confusion and resentment for Treville until long after everything was ruined and done. But Captain Treville never told Porthos why only one slave, this slave, was worth rescue while the others could burn on that desert planet. 

Captain Treville valued confidence above all else. He would keep others’ secrets under pain of torture. He would hold the truth within himself and let it rot him from the inside before he would tell Porthos that their father had sold them as a child; or that Milady had sold her own life to buy her way out of slavery. Porthos learns from this lesson that a silent trust in the Force to hold all secrets is better than speaking aloud. They hold so many secrets within them that eventually, they become more Force than Musketeer.) 

* * *

 

Porthos and Treville watch the spectacle of Captain Emilie and Queen Amidala’s handmaidens plotting a war. Captain Emilie is a powerhouse, but the Nabooine are more than a match for her. 

Porthos’ mind is elsewhere. 

“She seems strange,” says Porthos. “Like a wildling creature.” 

Captain Treville snorts in amusement. “You were much the same.” 

Porthos doesn’t return Treville’s humor. “Not in this way.” 

Treville turns, the leather of his armor creaking. His eyes are tired and patient as they rest on Porthos’ frown. He’s holding his weight unevenly; his bad hip is bothering him again. Porthos is reminded of how old their master is, a fact that has a place in Porthos’ knowledge but rarely is in the forefront of their mind. “My choices are influenced by the Force. I would not have agreed to train her if I doubted she could match you in bravery and strength.” 

Porthos recalls Milady’s scrawny frame and snorts. “Yeah, I’ll challenge her to an arm-wrestling match later.” 

“It seems my apprentice needs to hone their skills on reading a person.” Treville claps Porthos on their shoulder. “There are many types of strength.” 

Porthos can feel the Force gathering around them. They can feel the deep well of Life-Force that is Captain Treville, scarred vambrace and bad hip and all. They can hear the swell of power in the words of the warriors clustered around a holo-map, as they come to a consensus and their separate wills join into one sharp objective. 

They felt none of this power from Milady. They saw a small, starved desert child with canny eyes, and nothing more. 

Treville nods toward the northern plain. “Come. Force willing, we will have plenty of time to argue about this later.” 

Porthos follows him into battle with a grin. 

With the Musketeers there, the fight turns. No longer are the Tortugans pushing the Nabooine forces back. Captain Emilie is a burst of flame in Porthos’ mind. Duchess Savoy, wielding her distinctive short sabers, whirls up and down the rows of Tortugan soldiers, leaving debris in her wake. 

Treville, as always, is a constant in Porthos’ consciousness. Porthos calls the light to their sabre an instant before Treville lights his; they have the sabre up in a ready position as Treville charges forward. Treville’s Force signature had long ago lodged itself in a part of Porthos’ brain that speaks of comfort and healing. The part that assigns home to a person, not any garrison. 

* * *

 

Milady is fidgeting on a piloting chair in the Musketeer ship when something catches her eager gaze: a fleet of Tortugans sneaking up on a pass between two modest hills. The Tortugans obviously aim to charge the pass and catch the Nabooine by deadly surprise. 

A section of the offending Tortugan fleet breaks off and Milady realizes with horror that they are making a straight line for the Musketeer ship in which she sits. These Tortugans are all droids. They are strange, gleaming droids, unlike the squat ‘bots Milady is used to on Tatooine. They look more dangerous than any she has seen before. She can easily imagine their clawed hands tearing open the ship doors and finding her inside. 

“Treville?” Milady fumbles for the communicator. “Captain Treville?” She clicks and un-clicks the power button. It’s working. But no one is answering her. 

Milady swallows nervously. Treville told her to stay. Will he find her body here after the Tortugans have destroyed the ship where it is docked? Even if she did feel like obeying blindly, there is nowhere to go. If she made it out of the ship, she would become a target of herself for the Tortugans. 

Milady is a spy and a beggar, not a pilot. There are so many strange switches and dials on the three consoles at the head of the pilot bay. Some of them are color-coded, some have labels, but most are blank and terrifying. 

The droids turn toward the Musketeers’ grounded spacecraft. 

She jams random buttons with trembling fingers, knowing they won’t work. There is nothing she can do but sit here and wait. 

The droids approach at a steady pace. 

She closes her eyes. 

_ Calm your mind _ , Captain Treville said. She breathes deeply, trying to ignore her pounding heart. 

There is something just out of reach. Something she can’t see, can’t touch, but she knows it’s there all the same. She is on her tip-toes at the edge of a cliff, waiting to dive; waiting for the airstream to catch her and buoy her up. 

She lets out a breath and doesn’t inhale for several seconds. There is no rush. 

The Force is around her, holding her as the air cradles the belly of a ship in midair. She is floating in it -- no, flying -- rushing through it and it is rushing through her, as if she was the wind and could outstrip anything -- 

\-- a droid just a meter and a half away -- 

\-- the empty, expectant space of the ship dock -- every crevice that could shelter a ship from laser beams -- the gaping mouth of the gap between the hills, and beyond that the open sky -- 

\-- the engine cooling down, that final  _ ping _ as the metal and the plasma finally separate. 

Unseen, the engine light flickers green. 

Milady doesn’t need to see it. Her finger finds the button with unerring accuracy and the engine is roaring to life, and her hands are on the control and her eyes are opening. The droids are falling all around her. 

She falters for a moment, realizing that it is her hands on the controls that are firing upon the droids; but then she grins, exultation rushing to the very tips of her toes. It was what Captain Treville had talked about. The Force. It had guided her as he said it would. 

(Maybe he has something to teach her after all.) 

She takes out the droids and races for the pass. An explosion nearly takes out her right wing just as she reaches open space. She swerves, and realizes that the droids she smashed are setting fire to the docking station. 

She feels alive, with fire chasing her tail fin and the rush of victory in her head. She laughs aloud as she points the ship directly at the Tortugans entering the pass. Her fingers hover over the weapons charger. 

This is what the Force feels like:  _ victory _ . 

* * *

 

Another battle fought. Another set of wounds already turning into scars. 

Treville staggers through the ornate doorway of the secondary palace. It is quiet here now. He just needs to catch his breath, away from the chaos of the aftermath of battle. The blood and death hangs in the air above the plains. Treville will be glad to ride away from this place. The still air of the garrison is what he needs. His own bed, with the window that lets the light in his eyes every morning. 

He finds a cleansing room. Probably meant for the Queen, but no one else is here to protest his use of it. 

“It is over?”

Treville whirls around, ready to fight in an instant. But it is only a golden-haired handmaiden holding a glaive. Her fingers flex around the handle, and then she forces her hand to relax. 

“Yes,” says Treville. “It is over.” 

The handmaiden slumps against the wall. For once, the royal exterior cracks and human exhaustion shows itself. 

“That was my first battle,” she says. “Assassinations we have foiled, but hatred on such a grand scale…” She meets Treville’s eyes. “I hope we never have to face that again. How do you do it all the time?” 

Treville racks his mind to recall her name. Is it Lucie, or Marguerite? He’s fairly sure it’s Marguerite. Yes: she has a faint dimple along her jawline. “It is the life of a Musketeer.” 

“But what do you do when you have no battles to fight?” 

“We return to the Garrison.” He adds, with a weary humor that comes from fighting, “We wait for the next one.” Treville turns back to the cleansing table and lays his sabre on a pile of dainty scarves. He drinks deeply from the purified water tank. 

Marguerite’s voice comes softly from behind him. “What of us? What do we do next? Can we only wait for this to happen again? Will the Musketeers protect us every time?” 

“Of course,” says Treville. He splashes liquid on his face and scrubs the grime with a towel. It will have to be burned now. “The Musketeers will welcome Queen Amidala as an ally an--” 

Marguerite’s knife is in his back. 

“My Queen belongs to no Court,” she says behind him. Her voice is sharp, not hysterical but desperate. 

Treville resists the urge to call for his sabre. “Marguerite, we have fought together. This is not the way to go.” 

Marguerite breathes deeply, using her training to stay calm. She tightens her grip on the knife and twists it. Treville gasps and, despite himself, his fingers twitch for his lightsabre. It soars giddily into his hand. 

Marguerite jumps backward, pulling the knife out of Treville as she goes. She holds it in front of her, palm down, in a Nabooine offensive stance. 

“The Court will not swallow my Queen and my planet with it,” she says. Her face is paler than when she wears the Queen’s makeup. Her eyes glint with tears, but she meets Treville’s gaze. 

“Marguerite, stop this. The Court is not the Musketeers. Listen. We can talk about this.” Treville holds his hands out: one holding the unlit sabre, the other open and calming. 

“You are a good man. But I cannot be sorry for eliminating a power that corrupts every planet it touches.” 

Treville activates his lightsabre. He brings it down upon her; it catches Marguerite’s robe but she is already spinning away. She darts in and scores a slight tear down his armor. 

She is a strong warrior, but Treville is a seasoned Musketeer. Despite his injury he spins and brings his sabre up and around, and Marguerite’s shoulder is slashed open, steaming and sizzling. Marguerite whimpers, barely stopping herself from screaming. She flicks another hidden blade at Treville. He blocks it with his sabre and the dagger melts. The hilt clatters to the ground. 

In the time it takes Treville to refocus, Marguerite has vanished among the many hidden passages of the palace.

* * *

 

The palace of Naboo is full of the sort of open spaces Milady has only known from the desert. There are dangers here, as there are on Tatooine. She approaches the group of armed warriors who are briefing the handmaidens of the Queen.

“So,” says a tall Musketeer with a long, fair braid hanging over her shoulder. She towers over Milady. “This is the child who stole our ship.” 

Milady refrains from meeting the tall woman’s eyes, and bows perfectly. “Your lordship,” she murmurs. 

“I am not any lord,” says the Musketeer. “My title is Captain Emilie.” 

Milady had counted on Musketeers being open to flattery, but it seems that Musketeers are different than preening nobodies on Tatooine. She straightens. Better to be straightforward, then. 

“My name is Milady,” she says. “I came here with Captain Treville to become a Musketeer.” 

Captain Emilie frowns. “He made no mention of you when he contacted us.” Her gaze is not gentle, but not unkind. “We do not accept trainees at random.” 

Milady’s insides twist with anxiety as she tries to think of how to argue in her own defense. She must leave Naboo with Captain Treville. She must not stay here for Sarazin to find and snatch up again. 

Captain Emilie turns to the other Musketeers. “Duchess? We can spare some coin from our public fund to see Milady settled here, can’t we?” 

One of the handmaidens moves forward; Anne looks at Milady with gentle pity. “We would find her a comfortable home on our planet.” 

“Treville...” Milady is horrified that her voice is shaking. “Captain Treville promised me.” 

Captain Emilie turns back to her. “He was wrong to do so without consulting us.” She is frowning as if Milady is a piece of furniture that doesn’t match the rest of the throne room. 

There is a small commotion as Porthos enters the room. Treville’s partner, it seems, is a small commotion unto themself. They pause in stripping off their gloves and look around. “What’s going on?” 

“Knight Porthos,” says Captain Emilie, with a kind of pointedness Milady perceives but does not understand until Porthos, with an embarrassed smile, sketches a bow and says, “Captain Emilie. Captain De Savoy. Thank you for assisting us.” 

“All for one,” says Captain Emilie formally. 

“One for all,” Porthos answers by rote. They straighten from their bow and look around the room again. “Is something wrong?” 

“The Council was discussing your Captain’s newest indiscretion,” says Captain Emilie. “A Musketeer can only duel by his own rules so many times before the Council wonders if he is trying to  _ become _ the Council.” 

“I have my master’s word that his decision was not made in haste,” says Porthos. They sneak a look at Milady and she must look miserable, because Porthos straightens their shoulders and says, with more determination, “I support Captain Treville’s choice. And if her flying skills are anything to go by, she’d be a good fighter. Was that your first solo pilot?” they ask her. 

Porthos looks at Milady and -- and it’s like being on the Musketeer ship and flying it into the hills, but like the very air is the ship, or  _ she _ is the ship, vibrating so fast she hums in her very bones. She can feel the Force eddying around her, like fine particles of sand rearranging themselves into a dune around her body and mind. 

She tips one point over and the Force-sand goes skittering back to Porthos. They lift a corner of their mouth in a smile. 

Milady straightens her shoulders as well, drawing confidence from Treville’s partner. “It was,” she says. It’s a lie, but it doesn’t matter. She knows what Porthos is trying to get her to say before her judges. “I couldn’t let anyone else die. I had to do something.” She bows to Captain Emilie again, this time apologetically. “It wasn’t my ship to pilot. But,” she adds with a thrill of understanding what the Musketeers are, and how she can appeal to their nature, “I was the only one who could do something. So I had to do it.” 

Captain Emilie regards her stonily. “Hmm.” 

Unheralded, Captain Treville walks heavily through the door. He’s limping, but upright. Milady finds herself crumpling smaller in relief; barely holds herself back from scuttling over to him and hiding behind him like a child. Treville will fix this. 

“Ah, Treville,” says Captain Emilie. “We were just discussing your foundling. When were you going to tell us that you had become the Council and decided whom our trainees will be?” 

Treville grimaces ruefully and limps over to meet her. “I’d have filled out an adoption form, but I’m afraid I lost my writing utensils somewhere in the desert of Tatooine.” 

The captain standing behind Emilie speaks up, her dark eyes dancing but her tone dry. “Tatooine? You simply must tell us the whole story over tea.” 

Captain Treville nods to her. “It would be my pleasure, Duchess. Shall we say, tomorrow afternoon in the salon at the Garrison?” 

Captain Emilie clicks her tongue in impatience. “Treville, what is the reasoning behind bringing this child into our fold?” 

A spark of rage flickers through Milady’s veins. She holds it on her tongue before remembering that she will never fear Sarazin’s reprisal again. 

“My name is Milady,” she says loudly. 

Everyone turns to stare at her. 

She has never had such an audience before, and never in such a royal place. But she raises her chin and looks Captain Emilie square in the eye. Her voice echoes into the domed ceiling. “I am Milady, daughter of the desert winds, born of no one and tied to no one. I have no master.” She almost stutters on the last one, unused to the declaration, but she finishes the recital smoothly. “Do with me what you will, Captain, but know that I am no one’s indiscretion or child.” 

Captain Emilie regards Milady for a long moment. "I sense Treville's mulishness in you," she says at last. Porthos poorly hides a smirk. Captain Emilie sighs and looks at Treville. “I almost ask myself what the point of protocol is, if you’re always going to be forgetting it. Were we ever going to be able to deny you?” 

“I apologize for making my decision before the Council heard of it,” Treville says. “Unfortunately, I sensed that I did not have the time needed to consult you before making my last deeds known.” 

For the first time since Milady has met her, Captain Emilie’s stern features soften in confusion. “Your last deeds?” 

“About that,” says Treville. His hand goes to his side, and for the first time since entering the room he looks mildly perturbed. “I believe I’ve been poisoned.” 

* * *

 

Porthos’ assurances to Milady that Captain Treville isn’t badly hurt trail off as Lucie returns with a grim expression. She holds the results of the plasma-test in her hands. Porthos rises. Beside them, Milady does the same. 

“It’s mariciaroot,” says Lucie. “It’s time to say your rituals.” 

“What do you mean?” snaps Captain Emilie. 

“He has reached a tremendous number of years,” says Lucie, unfazed. “You must have prepared for this moment.” 

“He’s only -- Duchess, how old is Treville?” Captain Emilie reaches up and yanks on her long braid in agitation. “It doesn’t matter. He has many years before him.” 

Lucie’s eyes widen. “I didn’t know. We thought he was here to give wisdom. It was a shock to see him jump into battle. Our elders are younger than he is.” 

It makes sense, Porthos realizes, for a planet with such a young Queen. 

“The poison… it’s native to Naboo. It comes from a tree in the Northern Shelves. Some families use it to tattoo themselves because the color stays under their skin until even after death.” She seems to know she’s rambling; she stops to take a breath and then continues more slowly. “It’s treatable within minutes, but the captain was pierced with a blade that injected the poison into his stomach. By the time he reached us, it was already too late.” Lucie takes another deep breath. “I am sorry. The arms of time will take him.” 

Captain Emilie steps forward. “How long?” 

“He will not see the night.” 

“Knight Porthobi,” says Captain Emilie. 

Milady feels Porthos startle, but they try to remain passive as they answer, “Yes?” 

“You are his student and partner. You should see him first.” 

Porthos hesitates for a heartbeat, knowing that protocol suggests that the highest-ranking Musketeer receive a dying fellow before any else, to learn their untold wisdom. But their heart prevails over their logic. 

At the door, they turn around and extend a hand to Milady. “Come on,” they say. “You’re his student too.” 

Milady scrambles up from her seat against a wall. She does not take Porthos’ hand, but her steps match theirs as the two students approach their master. 

Captain Treville is sitting up, despite the pointed looks from the royal healer who is tending to him. His leather uniform lies in a pile nearby; a blood-spotted bandage is wrapped around his middle. Porthos is struck by how wiry and small Treville seems, without the uniform he wears so constantly as to be a second skin. 

Treville accepts them with grace. He is obviously ignoring the tremors in his limbs and the sweat on his brow. Milady and Porthos follow his example as best they can. 

“Porthos,” Treville says. “I have done wrong by you.” 

Porthos clasps Treville’s hand with both of their own. “Never.” 

Treville shakes his head; it jerks around as he temporarily loses control of the muscles in his neck. “I waited too long. I should have told you when you were younger, but I couldn’t… I thought too highly of your adoration.” 

“It’s fine, master,” Porthos soothes, feverish with guilt and worry. “It’s all fine.” 

Treville squeezes Porthos’ hands, then reaches his other hand for Milady. She takes it after a moment’s hesitation.  

“You two have much to teach each other,” he says. “My only regret is that I will not see what you become.” His trembling lips try to smile. His eyes slip over Porthos’ shoulder, and the smile turns to dismay. 

“Belgard,” he says, “Belgard, you fool.” His head lolls back on his neck. 

“Master Treville?” Porthos scoops their teacher into their arms. “Treville? Captain!” 

Captain Emilie comes in at a run. “Out, you two,” she says to Porthos and Milady. “Out, Porthobi! That’s an order!” 

(It is strange. Milady has seen people die. She has caused death. She has never been shaken by their passing. She has been affected by her own power in allowing others to die, yes; by the strange and often whimsical line that separates breath from stillness, yes; by the easy way others treat death, as if it was a friend, yes. But never has the person dying meant anything to her besides a reevaluation of her next moves. 

Captain Treville in Porthos’ arms stir in her a terrible grief that feels more ancient than her spindly human existence. It is too much to realize and so she quickly shoves it down inside her and ignores it. Every time she thinks about Captain Treville afterward, a spike of this monstrous hurt pierces her. 

She tries not to think about him too much.) 

* * *

 

Anne dons her Queenly costume for Captain Treville’s farewell ceremony. Milady thinks ei looks cold and tired in the blue paint. The flames of the pyre flicker over eir pale face and the faces of her handmaidens beside her. The Amidalas are missing one member. 

Milady listens as Anne speaks in an undertone to Porthos. “I cannot believe that Marguerite would do this.” Eir eyes are large with bewilderment. 

“Captain Treville spoke the truth,” Porthos says sharply. 

“I don’t doubt him,” Anne assures them quickly. “I wouldn’t question his last confessions. I only mean… Marguerite! She has been my protector, my friend… How could she do this?” Anne’s eyes well with tears. 

(Milady stares at the pyre holding Treville’s body. She’s angry at Marguerite, but she doesn’t get why everyone else is. Treville wasn’t going to teach  _ them _ how to be a Musketeer. She doesn’t get why everyone’s making such a big deal about Marguerite. She used a poisoned blade very well, and then she fled. If anything, Anne should be annoyed with eir guards for letting Marguerite escape. This is what happens when a leader doesn’t have tight control over their lackeys.) 

Anne turns to Porthos suddenly. “I beg of you, don’t let this come between us. Naboo is eager -- we have been considering joining Court for some time, and now -- now we are more defenceless than ever. An alliance with the Musketeers would be... “ Ei shakes eir head. “It could save us. I don’t have a delicate way to say it. We will do anything to remain allied with you.” 

Porthos takes Anne’s hand and presses their mouth to her knuckles. It is an old-fashioned way of pledging oneself to another. Milady watches out of the corner of her eye. Next to Porthos’ bulk, Anne looks even frailer than usual; but there is a determination in eir stance, and stubbornness in the set of eir jaw. Milady thinks that Anne is what a lady should be. Anne is what she wants to be. 

“The petition must be made to Captain Emilie,” says Porthos to Anne. “But I will do all I can to convince her that Naboo is a beneficial ally.” 

They turn to Milady and catches her looking. She almost looks away, but decides to see how the Musketeer handles her. Is she unwanted scrap now? Will Porthos carry her, or will they leave her here? 

Porthos kneels to her height. “I wish you’d more time to know him. He taught me everything I know. He was…” Porthos swallows a few times. “He was as good as any father I could’ve had.” 

(Milady doesn’t know how to give condolences. She doesn’t learn what they are for another seven months, when Porthos teaches her the traditional Venusian “I grieve with thee.”) As it is, Milady nods to show her understanding. 

"You'll be a Musketeer," Porthos promises. “I’ll do my best for you, the way he would’ve wanted.” 

Milady looks back at the burning body of the first person who'd seen her as a warrior. Instead of the flames of Treville’s pyre, she sees his sabre rippling under the desert sun. 


End file.
